Way Downstream …(Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 2019)
In the days before iPhones and Netflix, swallowing goldfish was a time-honored, if ridiculous, activity for inebriated young fellows. A guy in Holland carried the game too far.
The current issue of Acta-Oto-Laryngologica Case Reports (we at Bay Weekly love obscure journals) tells about a group of young drunks in the town of Rotterdam who apparently had emptied the aquarium of small species.
In a report with the headline A Jackass and a Fish, the journal describes a gaggle of fellows apparently inspired by the old MTV Jackass program, showing people performing goofy stunts, and often injuring themselves.
In this case, a 28-year-old man goaded by shouts of grote vis! grote vis! (‘big fish, big fish’ in Dutch) swallowed a bronze catfish. A mistake as the bronze catfish has spiny fins and shoots toxins when threatened.
The choking fellow wound up in the emergency room, where it took intrusive procedures to save him.
The fish? What’s left of it now resides in the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam along with, we hope, the tale of a jackass and a fish.