Here it is, the last resort for Obama. The smoke enema. Bend over and get ready. He will be pumping those billows as fast as he can. Desperation will do strange things to a narcissistic egomaniac who may be losing for the first time. Many question whether Obama really quit smoking. The tool pictured above was used in medical journals.
The 18th century saw a growing sense of national responsibility for health and welfare. One curious result was the founding of so-called humane societies, devoted to resuscitating the victims of drowning or other mishap. Tobacco smoke enemas were considered by Humane Societies to be as important as artificial respiration. Meaning, if you stopped breathing, the doctor’s first action was to shove a tube up your rectum and to begin pumping tobacco smoke in your body. One of the earliest and most famous humane societies, the Society for the Recovery of Drowned Persons, was started in Amsterdam in 1767; by 1802 the Dutch society had resuscitated 990 people. Similar organizations sprang up in Venice, Hamburg, Milan, St Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, and London. This last society, The Institution for Affording Immediate Relief to Persons Apparently Dead from Drowning, was founded in the Chapter Coffee House, St Paul’s Churchyard, in 1774. Eventually, in 1787, it became the Royal Humane Society and provided resuscitation kits, including tobacco enemas, at various points along the Thames. In 1835, the Royal Humane Society opened a so-called receiving house by the Serpentine in Hyde Park, complete with warm baths, and “ice men” to rescue drowning skaters.
Resuscitation kits, like the one in the photograph above, were produced from the middle of the 18th century onwards. They consist of bellows, tubing, nasal or tracheal airways, rectal pipes, and medicament’s of various kinds.
