Bloggasm

As Clive Thompson reports, a radiologist named Brian Witcombe wondered what we all have at some point: How dangerous is it to swallow a sword? So he studied 110 sword swallowers and published it in the British Medical Journal.

“Major complications,” he concluded, “are more likely when the swallower is distracted or swallows multiple or unusual swords or when previous injury is present.”

If you’re interested in learning how to swallow swords, it describes the techniques of doing so:

Some respondents swallowed a sword easily, but mastery for most required daily practice over months or years. The gag reflex is desensitised, sometimes by repeatedly putting fingers down the throat, but other objects are used including spoons, paint brushes, knitting needles, and plastic tubes before the swallower commonly progresses to a bent wire coat hanger. The performer must then learn to align a sword with the upper oesophageal sphincter with the neck hyper-extended. The next step requires relaxation of the pharynx and oesophagus and particularly the horizontal fibres of cricopharyngeus, which are not usually under voluntary control.

As Thompson wrote: “I read many scientific studies that get me excited — but I’ve never encountered one that so frequently made me wince.”

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