Performers
at fairs and in the streets keep us entertained with twirling fire-staffs, fire
breathing and sword swallowing. The acts are very dramatic, even sensational if
well done and I guess if their not well done, the performers won’t be doing
much of it in the future. But even for the expert there are side effects to
these extreme spectator sports.
Minor
burns and swallowing hydrocarbons are serious enough, but catching your hair or
clothes alight is much more serious and although our local club has fire
blankets on hand, this may not be the case in front of a bus-queue.
Swallowing
swords can have other side effects and Witcomb and Meyer carried out an
international survey and wrote up their findings in the British Medical Journal
(1). There were 110 sword swallowers from 16 countries who were invited to outline
side effects that they’d experienced. Swords range in length from 17 inches to 31
inches, so not too wimpy. The authors excluded exotic items like spear guns and
jackhammers so as not to confuse the issue.
The
main side effect reported was “sword throat” which occurred when learning or
performing too often in one day. A sword throat is a sore throat and was
treated by over the counter remedies and cutting out swords from their diet for
a few days.
Perforations
did occur occasionally. Distractions made this more likely. Two
examples mentioned were that of a swallower with a macaw on his shoulder that
started to misbehave, and a belly dancer, with three sword down at once, who got a
surprise when someone started to stuff dollar bills down her belt. The
wriggling caused the blades to turn into scissors and chop at her oesophagus.
This
may seem hard to swallow, but the prognosis for such injuries was for a better
outcome than perforation injuries from other causes.
Thanks to the Annals of Improbable Research for
bring this to light.
