The other day our large dog couldn’t wakes us near morning and had to poo in the house. The stench was grotesque. I turned on the kitchen and bath vent fans and opened windows while we cleaned up. Is that disgusting air bad for you?
The scientific consensus on this weighty matter suggests that air reeking of feces is unlikely to be bad for you. Impeccable research has been done.
“(A nurse) wanted to know whether she was contaminating the operating theatre she worked in by quietly farting in the sterile environment during operations, and I realised that I didn’t know,” Dr Karl Kruszelnicki told listeners to his science phone-in radio show in Brisbane. "But I was determined to find out.”
“He contacted a microbiologist in Canberra in order to come up with an experimental study…conducted by taking off your pants and farting directly into a Petri dish.”
“His microbiologist friend, Luke Tennent, asked one of his colleagues (presumably, a close colleague) to blast one out at a Petri dish from 5 centimeters (2 inches) away.”
“The colleague was asked to do this once fully clothed, and once again with nothing between his anus and the dish except for those 5 centimeters of air…
After the participant did their duty into the Petri dishes, they were left overnight to be analyzed later on. The next morning, the Petri dish that had received flatulence from the uncovered anus had sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria that are usually found only in the gut and on the skin, as reported in the journal BMJ. Meanwhile, the flatulence that had to make its way through the clothing before getting to the dish had no bacteria that sprouted.”
So to be on the safe side, make sure your dog wears pants.
*for clarification, it should be noted that it’s believed that smelling poop doesn’t mean you’re inhaling particulate dung, just foul chemical odors associated with it.
What I want to know is if there were any repercussions for Ms. Silent-But-Deadly’s farting in the OR.
If delicate abdominal surgery was going on, might the surgeon(s) mistake the foul blast as evidence that they’d perforated the bowel?
Sorry for no cite, but I’ve heard of a case where a doctor was doing surgery while a bunch of med students looked on.
At some point the doctor asked if anybody had farted. Nobody admitted to it, so the doctor asked again, explaining that he had to know in case the smell indicated that the bowel had been cut.
A sheepish student had to raise his hand.
So farting while naked is unsanitary?
Only if you’re doing it in someones direction.
I have to say that “sheer velocity of the fart” is right up there with “cacophony of farts” when it comes to things scientists have said about farts.
And if you have an outrageous French accent.
Comedian Mike Birbiglia has a routine about being asked not to eat a peanut butter sandwich during a flight. He is told another passenger has a peanut allergy, which could be triggered even if the peanuts were just “in the air”. He is asked to eat his sandwich in the airplane bathroom. And discovers he is “allergic” to eating if the smell of poop is “in the air”…
So maybe.
Something tells me that this surgeon does this with every new group of med students.
mmm
Exercise caution when your doctor asks you to “pull their finger”.
Bad smells can indeed indicate things like entering a pilonidal abscess or bowel. Surgical etiquette requires taking into account the following dicta.
- The one who smelt it dealt it AND/OR
- He who denied it supplied it.