Outstanding Science!

Suppose it is 1983, and you are a doctor who has developed a drug that can produce an erection when injected into the penis. You need to provide evidence of this to an audience of other doctors at a conference.

How might you go about doing this?

Perhaps you'd produce pictures of erections that had been obtained by the injection of the drug. But how could you convince people that these pitctures hadn't been obtained by additional stimulation, or by watching erotic movies or magazines, or even just thinking erotic thoughts?

Science demands proof. And there is one sure way to provide this:

But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, ‘I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence’. With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row. As he approached them, erection waggling before him, four or five of the women in the front rows threw their arms up in the air, seemingly in unison, and screamed loudly. The scientific merits of the presentation had been overwhelmed, for them, by the novel and unusual mode of demonstrating the results.

Yes, really. This is peer-reviewed science, documented in the British Journal of Urology International.

Giles Brindley, for outstanding services to medicine, science, and hilarity, you are hereby inducted into the Shylock Holmes Order of Guys Who Kick Some Series Ass (Third Class).

(via jwz)