Among the gory medical tales from Thomas Morris, here is one about a "lady past middle age" who consulted a doctor in 1853 about pain and constipation. She had been suffering for twelve years already.
Patients have an uncanny habit of sticking the most unsuitable objects inside themselves, so the doctor no doubt suspected that this foreign body actually was a vase.Her appearance being thin and haggard, and the statement of her symptoms involving much that was unusual, an examination of the rectum was deemed necessary. On passing the finger into the bowel, a hard uneven substance was encountered, having somewhat the shape of a vase, and being at least fifteen inches in circumference.
Its exterior did not in the least resemble that of indurated [hardened] faeces, feeling, indeed, as hard as stone, and being rough, like an oyster shell. Very fortunately its interior was not so hard as the outside, otherwise its removal might have been impracticable. By the use of a pair of long polypus forceps, a hole was gradually made into its centre, and working outwards from this by degrees, the mass was broken down, and extracted piecemeal by means of a scoop.
The patient recovered, and the pieces of the mass that was removed from the woman was sent to a meeting of the Pathological Society of London. The members went to work to figure out what it was, and how it managed to form inside the woman's bowel. Read how she made her own version of concrete at Thomas Morris' blog. -via Strange Company
Steve did many funny bits. The "Answer Man" which was probably an old vaudeville act was an earlier version of Carson's Carnac. Steve pretty much steered away from any political topics. Wish the so-called comics of today would do the same and just be funny.