Bizarre But True! The phrase “blowing smoke up your arse” might sound like something invented in modern times – possibly by someone like a marketing exec or a dodgy estate agent. Except for nearly a century, it was an actual medical treatment…
Not metaphorical. Literal tobacco smoke. Rectally inserted. Prescribed by doctors. Funded by institutions. Installed in public emergency kits.
Read on and we promise not to blow any smoke up your backside as you discover the Bizarre But True! origins of this well known phrase…
The Drowning Problem That Started It All
In 1746, a woman nearly drowned. She was unconscious and by all appearances, dead. A passing sailor, because of course it was a sailor, suggested her husband insert the stem of his pipe into her rectum, cover the bowl with perforated paper and blow hard as a cure for potential drowning…
The woman revived. Whether the tobacco smoke deserved credit is debatable Whether this incident launched an 80-year medical trend is not, however. Tobacco smoke enemas then became the go-to resuscitation method across Europe and North America, complete with dedicated equipment being manufactured for the purpose.
The Royal Humane Society’s Public Enema Stations
By the 1780s, the Royal Humane Society had installed ‘resuscitation kits’ at various points along the Thames in London. Not defibrillators. But enema kits. Specifically designed to deliver tobacco smoke into the rectums of drowning victims.
Picture those red emergency boxes you see beside rivers and lakes today and replace the defibrillator with a bellows, a tube and some tobacco.
To encourage participation, the Society even offered cash prizes to anyone who could prove they’d brought someone back to life using the equipment. Public enema stations became civic infrastructure, like water fountains but considerably more invasive!
Why Not Just Use Mouth-To-Mouth?
Because mouth-to-mouth was vulgar. Yes, the irony of that one isn’t lost on us either.
In 18th-century England, placing your mouth on a lifeless adult’s mouth was considered repugnant. Historical sources describe it as “inelegant” and “the method practised by the vulgar to restore stillborn children.”
Blowing smoke into someone’s rectum however? That was considered much more dignified.
The medical establishment evaluated two resuscitation options—mouth or anus and picked the anus. This wasn’t fringe thinking. This was mainstream medical consensus, published in journals and even encoded into public health policy.
But It Wasn’t Just For Drowning…
Once tobacco smoke enemas gained traction for drowning, physicians got creative. The procedure was prescribed for hernias, bowel obstructions, convulsions, cholera, constipation, headaches and respiratory issues.
Nineteenth-century Danish farmers even used it on constipated horses. If it works for humans, why not livestock?
Resuscitation kits were mass-produced with bellows to avoid the occupational hazard of accidentally inhaling during administration. Before bellows, practitioners risked aspirating the contents of a cholera patient’s bowels, which could result in death from dehydration and diarrhoea.
Venice Made It Legally Mandatory!
In Venice, administering tobacco smoke enemas to drowning victims even became legally required. Fines were established for anyone who failed to pursue the procedure. So you could literally be penalised for not blowing smoke up a corpse’s arse.
So, When Did It Stop?
By the early 19th century, researchers discovered that tobacco smoke could cause cardiac issues rather than resolve them and the practice was retired not because it was absurd, but because it was actively harmful.
Where Does The Saying Come From?
Despite the historical practice being well-documented, the phrase “blowing smoke up your arse” has no verified connection to tobacco smoke enemas. The idiom emerged in the 1960s, long after the procedure had even been abandoned.
It developed independently, likely as crude intensification of “blowing smoke” (deceiving or flattering). Snopes confirms there’s no documented link.
So the saying might not derive from the practice, but the practice definitely deserves remembering. Not as a joke, but as proof that institutional consensus isn’t truth and as a warning against what we’ve come to know these days as getting sucked (or should that be ‘blown’) into ‘group-think.’
