Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee demonstrates sword swallowing after he and radiologist Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, Britain were awarded a 2007 Ig Nobel Prize, 04 October 2007, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They were cited for their medical report "Sword Swallowing and its Side Effects." The prizes are given by the Harvard-based science humor magazine "Annals of Improbable Research" and honor "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". Prizes were also given for research about a literally-bottomless bowl of soup, a "gay bomb", a net that drops on bank robbers and vanilla made from cow dung. AFP PHOTO/Stan HONDA (Photo credit should read STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
DOG ASIDE:
Sword swallowing is a skill in which the performer passes a sword through the mouth and down the esophagus to the stomach….for this feat is not swallowing in the traditional sense….as the natural processes that constitute swallowing do not take place….but are repressed in order to keep the passage from the mouth to the stomach open for the sword. The practice is dangerous and there is risk of injury or death.
Most serious sword swallowing injuries and fatalities occur after minor injuries….or while attempting a feat beyond that of a “normal” sword swallow. The most common injury is a sore throat when first learning….or after frequent consecutive performances, or after swallowing curved swords or several swords at once.[6] Swallowing multiple swords simultaneously over time can also lead to distension of the esophagus.[7] A minor injury may predispose the performer to sustaining a more major one, including perforation of the esophagus, stomach, heart, lungs, and other organs in proximity to the path of the sword, or intestinal bleeding. Twenty-nine deaths have been reported as a result of sword swallowing injuries since 1880.
