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In the April 2003 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, two Seattle radiologists described a case of bowel obstruction in a 35-year-old man who was suffering from severe abdominal pain but had normal vital signs. He was found to have the heads of several Barbie dolls lodged in his small intestine, and explained that he’d been swallowing them because he liked the feeling he got when he passed them. The doctors offered tips on distinguishing doll heads from other objects in X-ray images, then advised other radiologists to “keep in mind that human imagination may not follow clinical algorithms.”
Our Litigious Society
In February the chief justice of Singapore, 77-year-old Yong Pung How, rejected pleas for leniency from a 25-year-old former policeman who’d been arrested for receiving oral sex. The defendant argued that defining oral sex as a crime “against the law of nature” is anachronistic, but Yong sentenced him to a year in jail, opining that strict standards of decency are a valuable part of Singapore’s culture. “There are countries where you can go and suck away for all you are worth,” the justice said, “but this is Asia.”
In the Last Month
