Did you know somebody caught gonorrhoea from one of these dolls? He was a sailor, and apparently he used it immediately after a shipmate without washing it. The STD specialist who wrote the case up up was awarded an IgNobel prize for his research.
the original report:
Transmission of gonorrhoea through an
inflatable dollNonsexual transmission of gonorrhoea seems
to be extremely rare. Only one case of
nonsexual transmission of genital Neisseria
gonorrhoeae is documented in adults',
involving two patients in a military hospital
who shared a urinal. N gonorrhoeae has been
shown to survive in infected secretions on
towels and handkerchiefs for 20 and 24
hours, respectively.2 Cultures from toilet
seats in public restrooms and venereal
disease clinics have failed to yield N
gonorrhoeae.34
The skipper from a trawler, who had been
3 months at sea, sought advice for urethral
discharge. His symptoms had lasted for two
weeks. A urethral smear showed typical
intracellular gram-negative diplococci, and a
culture was positive for N gonorrhoeae.
There had been no woman onboard the
trawler; he denied homosexual contacts; and
there was no doubt that the onset of the
symptoms was more than two months after
leaving the port.
With some hesitation, he told the story. A
few days before onset of his symptoms, he
had roused the engineer in his cabin during
the night because of engine trouble. After the
engineer had left his cabin, the skipper found
an inflatable doll with artificial vagina in his
bed, and he was tempted to have
"intercourse" with the doll. His complaints
started a few days after this episode.
The engineer was examined, and was
found to have gonorrhoea. He had observed a
mild urethral discharge since they left port,
but he had not been treated with antibiotics.
He admitted to having ejaculated into the
"vagina" of the doll just before the skipper
called him, without washing the doll
afterwards. He also admitted intercourse with
a girl in another town some days before going
to sea. This girl was traced, but the result of
her examination is not known. To the best of
our knowledge, no case of gonococcal
transmission through an inflatable doll has
been reported before.
E KLEIST
Nanoralik Hospital Nanortalik, Greenland
H MOI
Post Box 1001,
Venereaklinikken,
3900 Nuuk, Greenland
