Tobacco enemas for everyone!

Out of the depths of historic woo rises the ancient and leathery tobacco enema kit. Gaze with horror. Gaze!

Made by Evans & Co of London, this apparatus was used to revive people who were ‘apparently dead’, by making use of tobacco’s stimulant qualities. The bellows were used to blow tobacco smoke up the rectum (or into the lungs) … Tobacco enemas were popular from the 17th to the early 19th century. [Source]

Tobacco Enema Kit, 1774 (via Richard Kadrey)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Gadgets • health • History • woo

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Snig

There are scholarly comments across the internet debating if this is the origin of the phrase “Blow smoke up someone’s arse”.
- petertrepan
  
  Or “bellows” for that matter. It doesn’t look very pleasant.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/OKEONAMLFIOS5WI7MPQY6SXBCQ IRMO

Look alive, people. Don’t make me bring this out.
RangerJay

This would go great with my Gin & Tonic enema kit!
- Felton / Moderator
  
  Bottoms up!
- petertrepan
  
  You jest, but…
  
  http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-10-03/news/34243478_1_frat-house-broughton-enemas
- Preston Sturges
  
  No ice!
BrokenFiction

Were they ‘Mostly Dead’? Someone call Miracle Max!
- voiceinthedistance
  
  Most likely “lightly killed” in Monty Python parlance.
Max

It looks almost as pleasant as lung cancer.
Although presumably it would give you arse cancer instead.

Brings a whole new transatlantic confusion to “I’m just popping out for a f*g”
Robert Cruickshank

That could leave you with a bad case of cigarette butt.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Ashtray Ass
Max

I love it, some sort of advert placement engine has decided that an advert for hypnotherapeutic “Stop smoking in one hour” should adorn this article.
I think it would take most people less than an hour to decide that smoking in this way was not what they wanted to do.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=611820430 Michael LeFevre

now that’s what I call blowing smoke up someones ass!
Quiche de Resistance

“The rectal smoke isn’t working, let’s try his lungs!”
http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

If they where dead that probably wouldn’t help. And if they where unconscious smelling salt would probably work better. If they’re not reacting to smelling salts, it’s fairly sure they wouldn’t react to that.
- Mighty Blowhole
  
  “If they where (sic) dead that probably wouldn’t help.”
  …PROBABLY?!? What, we end up with tobacco zombies?
  - http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
    
    Well, the clinical indicator of dead absent other external causes in the modern medicinical world: “Does the person react?” “Is the heart beating?” “Is there breath?” and if you want to go out on a limb “Does the EEG look like braindead?”
    
    After about 10 minutes of being considered clinically dead, you’re considered officially dead.
    
    But, it has been known that people who where pronounced clinically dead have occasionally come back to life. So the modern medical opinion of “dead” can’t be all there is to it. In fact, medicine is pushing the boundary of dead further and further out. By now, under some conditions, you’re considered alive hours after you stopped breathing and having a heartbeat.
    
    So I believe that the people backthen before modern medicine noticed some strange things too where people who seemed dead, weren’t really. I can only surmise that this interesting smoking device is one (perhaps missguided) attempt to push out the boundary a little. But then, has anybody actually tried the thing in modern times? I mean, we don’t have to go so barbaric. But is there any clinical study of the effect of a nicotine injection on patentients considered clinically dead? No? So who knows…
SomeGuyNamedMark

My ass takes filtered menthols.
- Quiche de Resistance
  
  I usually smoke via my mouth, but I’d be willing to try a new port
Joshua Danchik

So, is this method of smoking much healthier? Or do you just trade lung cancer for colon cancer?
Sean McLaughlin

And you thought second hand cigarette smoke was bad!
http://twitter.com/malcolmjackson ♡ Malcolm Jackson

Holy smokes, it’s coming out of his belly button.
http://twitter.com/GiantRobotPilot Drew Christensen

Using the whole bellows, doc?
Antinous / Moderator

Not really woo. It’s a stimulant, and rectal administration is a great way to get fast absorption. It’s a probably not very effective equivalent to an epinephrine injection.
- feetleet
  
  Yup. Just like insufflation (nose) or ocular administration (eyes). Yes, that Looper thing is real. With a capsule or pill, it’s colloquially called ‘plugging’. This is the same reason ‘dip’ is supposed to hit harder than cigarettes – sublingual and gum administration, sped up by fiberglass cutting a path into the arteries. I’d avoid putting fiberglass in your nicotine butt bellows, though.
http://twitter.com/Listener43 Listener43

Tobacco enemas were so popular that they were applied to dead people.
Hmm.
irksome

“Man, that satisfies.”
Jackie Britton

Would this come before or after the coffee enema I wonder?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhNFv4XLB0A&list=PL0BEAE3E4D0C8C4E0&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Selena60

Put some pot with it and you’re looking at the next Southern Alabama U frat craze.
Preston Sturges

I read that the reason “blowing smoke up your ass” as synonymous with nonsense is that one of the first scientific papers about saving drowning victims was a comparison of the rectal tobacco treatment versus the primitive forms. of artificial respiration.