The Woman Who Swallowed A Toothbrush, and Other Bizarre Medical Cases, by Rob Myers, M.D.

Long title, isn't it? And it pretty much sums up the contents of the book. I can't really give you a "synopsis", per se, because it's not real long on plot. It's a series of short vignettes about Weird Medical Stuff, and their reasons.

For example, the title case was a gal who was admitted to the emergency room with a sore throat and problems swallowing. Turns out she had a toothbrush lodged in there. Yup, she said she was brushing her teeth and slipped and fell and *WHAMMO*, toothbrush in the throat.
Only the toothbrush was lodged in there handle-side first.
Turns out she was bulimic, and was using it to induce vomiting, and stuck it in juuuuuuuust a little too far.

There's a story about a teen who came in with priapism, too. I'll leave it to you to think about how they solved that one. Oh, and the guy who showed up with mysterious symptoms that turned out to be lead poisoning. No, he wasn't eating Chinese-made toys - but he was chewing on electrical wire. That was his substitute for smoking. He decided after his chelation treatments (to remove the lead from his system) that he'd go back to smoking instead.

The book is a fascinating look at the human condition, really. I quite enjoyed it, although I will have to say it's not for everyone. If you're rather weak-stomached, I wouldn't recommend reading it while eating, for example. Especially not the one about the woman who had insects in her scalp. Really. Ew.

This book reads rather like a collection of stories from Jan Harold Brunvand's doctor. It's a lot of fun to read, well-written, and not too overlong on medical jargon, except where necessary (and then it's explained). You may think that it's actually a collection of Urban Legends, but the blurb in the back does say the cases are all based on fact, and most come from medical journals and professional publications. Some did come from personal anecdotes, however, and it may be that Dr. Myers was taken in occasionally by a "friend-of-a-friend" story, where someone told him that they knew someone who swears they know someone this happened to. There were a few times reading through it that I thought, "wow, I could swear I just read something similar on Snopes recently." I think, though, that most of that feeling is because the cases of necessity must be anonymized. Urban legends always happen to "someone in the emergency room", or "a guy walking down the road" - so these stories, by their nature, are going to 'feel' like Urban Legends.

But overall, it's an entertaining read, and well worth the time.

Even if it is kind of icky sometimes.

4 out of 5 bones. Crunch!