ALT EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT FROM POTASSIUM. Dr. Shipman, of Syracuse, US, relates the following singular case in the last number of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. A few months ago, I was called in great haste to a young gentleman, who was in a most ludicrous, yet painful condition. I found, on examination, a bottle, holding about a pint, with a short neck and small mouth, firmly attached to his body by the penis, which was drawn through the neck and projected into the bottle, being swollen and purple. The bottle, which was a white one, with a ground glass stopper and…

ALT Perfect transparent, had an opening of three fourths of an inch in diameter only; and the penis being much swollen rendered it’s extraction utterly impossible. The patient was greatly frightened, and so urgent for it’s removal that he would not give me any account of it getting into its present novel situation, but implored me to liberate it instantly, as the pain was intense and the metal anguish and fright intolerable. Seeing no hope of getting an explanation in his present predicament, and after endeavouring to pull the penis out with my fingers, without success, I seized a large knife lying on the table, and with the back of it I struck a blow on the neck of the bottle, shivering it to atoms and liberating the penis in an instant, much to the delight of the terrified youth. The glans penis was enormously, swollen, and black, as was the prepuce, both were vesicated, as though scalding water or fire had been applied to them.

ALT The Reader is probably Anxious to know by this time, have a penis, belonging to a live man, found its way into so unusual a place as the mouth of a bottle. I was extremely curious myself, but the fright and perturbation of the patient’s mind, and his apprehension of losing his penis entirely, either by the burn, swelling, inflammation, or by my cutting it off to get it out of the bottle, all came upon him at once, and overwhelmed him with a fear. Now for the explanation. Bottle in which some potassium had been kept in an apathy, and which had been used up in experiments, was standing in his room, and wishing to urinate without leaving his room, he pulled out the glass stopper, and applied his penis to its mouth.

ALT The first jet of urine was followed by an explosive sound and a flash of fire, and quick as a thought the penis was drawn into the bottle with a force and tenacity which held it as firmly as if in a vice. The burning of the potassium created a vacuum instantaneously, and the soft, yielding tissue of the penis effectually excluded the air, the bottle acted like a huge cupping glass to this novel portion of the system. The small size of the mouth of the bottle, compress the veins, while the arteries continue to pull their blood into the glands, prepuce, etc. From this cause, and the rarefied air in the bottle and puffed up to enormous size. How much potassium was in the bottle at the time is not known.