Saturday, February 16, 2008

Transmission of gonorrhoea through an inflatable doll

"In Mexico we have a word for sushi: Bait." - Jose Simon

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An infamous article:

Transmission of gonorrhoea through an inflatable doll
Genitourin Med. 1993 Aug;69(4):322

Nonsexual transmission of gonorrhoea seems to be extremely rare. Only one case of nonsexual transmisaion of genital Neisseria gonorrhoeae is documented in adults, involving two patients in a military hospital who shared a urinal. N gonorrhoeae has been shown to survive in infected secretions on towels and handkerchiefs for 20 and 24 hours, respectively. Cultures from toilet seats in public restrooms and venereal disease clinics have failed to yield N gonorrhoeae.

The skipper from a trawler, who had been 3 months at sea, sought advice for urethral discharge. His symptoms had lasted for two weeks. A urethral smear showed typical intracellular gram-negative diplococci, and a culture was positive for N gonorrhoeae. There had been no woman onboard the trawler; he denied homosexual contacts; and there was no doubt that the onset of the symptoms was more than two months after leaving the port.

With some hesitation, he told the story. A few days brfore onset of his symptoms, he had roused the engineer in his cabin during the night because of engine trouble. After the engineer had left his cabin, the skipper found an inflatable doll with artificial vagina in his bed, and he was tempted to have ‘intercourse” with the doll. His complaints started a few days after this episode.

The engineer was examined, and was found to have gonorrhoea. He had observed a mild urethral discharge since they left port, but he had not been treated with antibiotics. He admitted to having ejaculated into the “vagina” of the doll just before the skipper called him, without washing the doll afterwards. He also admitted intercourse with a girl in another town some days before going to sea. This girl was traced, but the result of her examination is not known. To the best of our knowledge, no case of gonococcal transmission through an inflatable doll has been reported before.

E KLEIST, H MOI
(Some hospitals), Greenland