h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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pig nuts

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he had a curly tail and a snout

Nope.

Actually pigs don't seem to feature at all. But name me a hoofed mammal and see if you strike lucky.

goats

Yes!! +3

Goats and monkeys were used extensively throughout Europe and America in these operations which number in their hundreds.

However San Quentin stands as an early exception to this animal husbandry (boom tish!)

Still to go:

They weren't the mutts nuts, so whose were they?

Also outstanding: What else was unusual about John Pearson?

Why were they doing this?

and the link to silent films.

wasnt the practice of catholic castratte' singers abolished around then and to give the 'victims' a chance of a normal life they looked into giving them nuts back

Catholic Castrati.

There is amazingly a link to The Vatican.

the pope carried out castrations during his time in the hitler youth

Wrong Pope.

allways go for the obvious

I do have a list of names who attended private clinics. It does read like a who's who of the elite.

So Taff, we've made considerable progress in the last few hours. Feel like making a summary?

NO!!!

Awww nuts!

The authorities took the nuts from recent residents of 'Old Sparkie', and transplanted them to see if they still worked!!!



GT

San Quentin is one of Califonia's oldest jails and one of the largest to house condemned criminals.

Until 1937, the hangman's noose was the preferred method of dispatch, after which it was the gas chamber. That was still in use until 1995, when they made the transition over to using a lethal injection.

We even have the date: the 18th October 1919. Convicted murder Thomas Bellon was executed. Before going to the morgue, he made a last detour via the prison medical facility whereupon his testicles immediately transplanted into another inmate by the prison medical officer Dr Leo L Stanley.

Stanley would go on to perform over 30 similar operations in a long career as the Prison chief medical officer.

However he was an early and somewhat unique practitioner in that his donors were other people (albeit dead ones); the phenomenon as it occurred elsewhere was to use animals.

His cases were even reported in prestigious journals like "Endocrinology" and appeared in press releases organised by the prison.

Refer back to #146 for the other outstanding parts of the question. You've got where the testicles in San Quentin were coming from.

GT +3

Another day dawns.

I am sat here definitely doing chemistry coursework, and I'm counting on you lot to distract me.

Did the extra testicles come from executed criminals?

I imagine that these experiments were done in the hope that "enhancements" could be offered to those injured in the war.

But, if an extra testicle made someone run faster it surely would have led to further experiments with "performance enhancing" substances and steroids.

"Until 1937, the hangman's noose was the preferred method of dispatch"

How did they answer the question "was the convicted man well hung?"

The unkindest cut of all?