I often get e-mails from practical fish keeping magazine, most of it is a load of rubbish so I ignore it, but this one tickled me. I couldn't open their website and link to it, so I've copied the information
Reader Chris Durrant has just sent us a copy of a paper from the journal Surgery which describes a case report on a man who inserted a 50cm/20" eel into his back passage.
The 50-year old man was admitted to the Accident and Emergency Department at Kwong Wah Hospital in Kowloon, Hong Kong, suffering from abdominal pain.
"Emergency laparotomy found a 50cm eel biting the splenic flexure..."
Doctors seeing to the patient diagnosed peritonitis and did an x-ray to find out what was wrong. Oddly, the x-ray revealed the presence of a live eel in the man's rectum.
"On further questioning," says the paper, "the patient admitted an eel was inserted into the rectum in an attempt to relieve constipation.
"Emergency laparotomy found a 50cm eel biting the splenic flexure of the colon, and a 3cm perforation was found over the anterior wall of the rectum.
"Insertion of a live animal into the rectum causing rectal perforation has never been previously reported.
"This may be related to a bizarre healthcare belief, inadvertent sexual behaviour, or criminal assault. However, the true reason may never be known."
The patient went home after a, presumably rather embarrassing, week in hospital.
We think the eel was probably Anguilla japonica.
