The Peanut Gallery: Who Ya Gonna Call?
Posted by Ross Rosenberg
All I know is that its highly unlikely that a normal (i.e., not related to Lady Deathstrike) human being could, over time, scratch a hole into their brain cavity using their fingernails (which, again, even over time, would be worn down to nubs in the face of bone) and cause inexplicably green brain matter to leak out. Especially since in order to leak out, it would have to be either melting from high fever, or under pressure due to internal swelling, and either way she’d likely be unconscious, if not dead. Again, the wound probably just got badly infected (with staph or similar) and pustulent, which is a perfectly good reason to send someone to the hospital, especially if they have HIV. Its even possible that between the infection, the external damage, and the HIV, the virus managed to make it to her brain, or trigger a heavy fever, causing the apparent brain damage.
M was probably just misunderstanding or misremembering the incident, which is understandable given the stress she was probably under at the time. Unless I see a medical chart with notes saying “perforation of the skull”, or perhaps a particularly impressive episode of Mythbusters, I’m not buying it.
Comment by Joe Shadows — June 25, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
While Mr. Shadows and I may have our differences — for example: he thinks me a gullible fool and I am fairly certain that he is a Communist — we can both agree that the only way to settle this is to get the Mythbusters on this conundrum post-haste. Hopefully they can construct an itch scratching machine, comprised of a hand made from ballistics jelly and bone connecting to a large motor, designed for the specific purpose of creating a perforation in a severed pig’s head.
Categories: Pig, Tongue-in-cheek, Mythbusters, Comments, Science, Moustaches, The Peanut Gallery, Communism
Posted at 9:01 am on June 26, 2008
14 Comments -
Until said Mythbusters are on the case, just call me pinko.
Comment by Susannah — June 26, 2008 @ 10:18 am
You should start a write in campaign requesting this myth be addressed post-haste.
Shout out to Jamie’s killer stache/beret look, tres classy, that.
Comment by P — June 26, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Now that would be some damn fine television, comrade.
Comment by Joe Shadows — June 26, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
I’d watch that.
Comment by Mike — June 26, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
Your argument is like hoist up a firm pumpkin in supermarket and declaring “no man could ever perform penetrative sexual congress with this fruit” (failing to consider the texture of a pumpkin left moldering at the doorstep for several months.
Clearly, for your own sanity you wish that it were not possible, but consider the following.
The scratching and festering had continued for years, and infection alone easily erodes away bone.
By the time she clawed all the way through, the “bone” was already reduced to spongy, decalcified rind.
Comment by e — June 26, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
and
shouldn’t this story be filed under
“Pornography-Desensitized Populace Demands New Orifice To Look At”
?
Comment by e — June 26, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
There is an interview with the article’s writer at the New Yorker site — he said that the repeated infection had spread to her skull, softening the bone. So I used my incredible typing and reading skills to do some research. Bone infection is called osteomyelitis, and the bone can begin to die if the condition is left untreated, as abscesses that drain blood supply from the bone form. Using my common sense, I surmised that the green fluid was probably pus from an abscess. Doing this kind of research and thinking is a lot more fun than just calling bullshit because something seems implausible to you, Mr. Shadows!
Comment by JdG — June 26, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
Oh snap, you just got served!
Comment by Mike — June 26, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
So… basically, she “scratched a hole all the way through to her brain” in the same sense that “Al Gore invented the internet”?
I believe that gross and misleading oversimplification still qualifies as BS, and stand by my original statement. Which included, by the way, my suggestion that the emergency trip to the hospital, brain injury, and mysterious green goo (implied by the wording to be some form of brain matter or cranial fluid), were in fact the results of an infection of the wounded tissue, and not in fact the direct results of physical scratching alone (again, as implied by the wording).
So basically, we’re already in agreement about what most likely actually happened, I just contend that the article itself is misleading to a point approaching outright falsehood.
And please, call me Joe.
Comment by Joe Shadows — June 26, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
I’ll reserve judgment about whether she actually scratched through her skull, but if you read the article, it mentions she’s in a wheelchair now due to the brain injury at the time she was hospitalized.
Comment by Miss Cellania — June 27, 2008 @ 12:09 am
Well, as Joe pointed out with his rather concise Al Gore comment, this seems to be more of a matter of interpretation. However, while it may be a simplification, the fact still remains that she had managed to scratch through her skull; I really don’t think that doing it with the help of an infection takes away from the veracity of that statement. I realize that that leaves room for all sorts of rebuttals involving power tools used to bring craniums to the brink of collapse, only to use one’s finger to complete the job, but I would argue that the even the infection was the result of said scratching. The greenish liquid dribbling down her face is a little more problematic, as it makes it far too easy for the reader to infer that said liquid is brain tissue. This is, perhaps, more an issue of bad writing.
Comment by Ross Rosenberg — June 27, 2008 @ 6:55 am
I think someone needs a tour of an insane asylum.
There have been known cases of people ripping off flesh because they thought they were peeling an orange and feeling no pain from it. Here is an interesting tidbit that you might or might not know. Nail biters (chronic ones) will wear down their teeth enamel faster then a non nail biter. If nails can wear down the hardest substance in the body, then I don’t doubt they can scratch (with many years of use) through bone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(anatomy)
-Aza
Comment by LordAza — June 27, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
There’s an abstract of a paper on the case (or a similiar one) here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11932056
It says:
“A 39-year-old woman experienced severe postherpetic itch, but no postherpetic neuralgia, after ophthalmic zoster. Within 1 year, she had painlessly scratched through her frontal skull into her brain.”
Comment by Random — June 28, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/318/5848/188?etoc=,
Comment by Poiple — July 21, 2008 @ 7:09 pm