7. When Blowing Smoke Up the Rear Was Not Just a Figure of Speech
Today, when somebody scoffs at another that “you’re just blowing smoke up my a**“, it is a figure of speech that the addressee is insincerely complementing the scoffer, telling him what he thinks he wants to hear. However, centuries ago, blowing smoke up one’s rear end was meant literally, to describe a medical procedure in which a tube or rubber hose was inserted in a person’s behind, through which tobacco smoke was blown. In the 1700s, doctors routinely used tobacco smoke enemas, in the mistaken belief that they had healing properties. Blowing smoke up the behind was thought to be particularly useful in reviving drowning victims.
The nicotine in tobacco was thought to make the heart beat faster, thus stimulating respiration, while smoke from the burning tobacco was thought to warm the drowning victim from the inside. It made intuitive sense: the drowned person was full of water, so blowing air, in the form of tobacco smoke which was full of healing properties, would expel the water. Hiccup was when the water was in the person’s lungs, which are not connected to his or her bum. Thus, blowing air up the drowning victims’ rears and into their bowels did little to expel water from their lungs.