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You're not going to give me the umbrella, are you?

drjbrennan

Ephemeral Spectre
Joined
Aug 14, 2001
Messages
313
This is a UL that I keep hearing once or twice a year. Now I know it's not true but can anyone add more information to the tale.

"The "umbrella test" is a longstanding urban myth that still bothers men who present for testing at sexual health clinics

Access to genitourinary clinics is a hot topic, and we have been working to encourage more men to present for screening for sexually transmitted infections. There is a long standing urban myth that men attending such clinics have to have the "umbrella test." This myth varies little in rendition. The usual description is that something akin to a cocktail umbrella in a closed position is inserted deep into the urethra. This umbrella is then opened out and withdrawn, to the considerable discomfort of the owner of said urethra."


http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7582/1287
 
Probably the same here, from my older sister. The clear implication was that such dirty devils deserved all they got. :lol:

I didn't believe it, because if it were true, nobody'd go. Stands to reason, innit. :roll:

The local Special Clinic was on a street near my childhood home. Aged about 8 or 9, I read the plaque outside and went home and asked my mother what it meant, and was spanked for talking about things like that.
Very puzzling and disconcerting at the time. :?
 
This was a schoolyard myth for me too, although I seem to remember that it was 'promoted' by my biology teacher, just befor we hit the reproduction part of the syllabus.

The idea stuck though, as a few years ago I had to attend a GU clinic (not because I'd done anything fun to warrant such a visit, no such luck, it was a bizarre prostitue bite incident) and as soon as my GP suggested I attend the clinic, it popped right into my mind, with ammendments for female anatomy of course. :shock:

(You're an imaginative lot - go figure :lol: )
 
Sounds similar to (but more painful than) the "cough and drop" that all boys supposedly got at around 14 at school.....
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
Sounds similar to (but more painful than) the "cough and drop" that all boys supposedly got at around 14 at school.....


I remember that rumour at my school in the mid-90s. It never happened though.

Somehow i think in today's climate the idea of the school matron handling 100 pairs of teenage balls of an afternoon may be frowned on!

Did it ever happen? In the olden days?
 
McAvennie_ said:
CarlosTheDJ said:
Sounds similar to (but more painful than) the "cough and drop" that all boys supposedly got at around 14 at school.....


I remember that rumour at my school in the mid-90s. It never happened though.

Somehow i think in today's climate the idea of the school matron handling 100 pairs of teenage balls of an afternoon may be frowned on!

Did it ever happen? In the olden days?

It happened to Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, so it must be true.
 
Don't forget Spike Milligan. :lol:
 
I heard about it in secondary school as well. More recently ive been reading about military stuff, soldiering in the world wars etc and was sure i could put my hand on a WWI account of a regimental doctor warning his troops about the danger of catching VD and then not being fit for duty (an offence almost as serious as desertion), to dissuade them further he also warned them of the 'procedures' available for remedying a dose of the clap: the famous umbrella needle up the old johnson.

Of course even then it was a myth. Before penicillin effacious cures like mercury and other heavy metals were prescribed. Annoyingly, but not unexpected, i cant find the extract and i have a dozen or so books to go through, so i may leave that one with the library angels.

This website, however, does have mention of the umbrella-needle treatment; for cases of the 'bullheaded clap'.

http://www.psywarrior.com/PSYOPVD.html
 
McAvennie_ said:
CarlosTheDJ said:
Sounds similar to (but more painful than) the "cough and drop" that all boys supposedly got at around 14 at school.....


I remember that rumour at my school in the mid-90s. It never happened though.

Somehow i think in today's climate the idea of the school matron handling 100 pairs of teenage balls of an afternoon may be frowned on!

Did it ever happen? In the olden days?

It's a test for a hernia, and it's still done (although not in schools as far as I'm aware).
 
drjbrennan said:
... something akin to a cocktail umbrella in a closed position is inserted deep into the urethra. This umbrella is then opened out and withdrawn, to the considerable discomfort of the owner of said urethra."
I think that, if this were ever true, the phrase "considerable discomfort" would rate as one of the understatements of our time.

At a routine check-up some years ago, something resembling a cotton bud was inserted in the place mentioned. Quite innocuous compared to a cocktail umbrella, you might think, and you may be right, but I was nonetheless astonished at how uncomfortable (by which I mean "painful"!) it was.
 
Jo Brand the comedien still claims this is done in her act... not for any diagnosic reason but "For a laugh"

It is then followed by a monologe about a tin of left over tuna being inserted where it shouldn't....
 
Proff_Nebulous said:
Jo Brand the comedien still claims this is done in her act... not for any diagnosic reason but "For a laugh"
I wouldn't want to watch that act! :shock:
 
The cough-test as your balls were cupped was in every Army comedy ever filmed! It was also a fact for any lad having a medical in school around adolescence in the sixties/seventies. The swab down the willy is a standard way to collect evidence of anything causing a problem there: the Ultra-Q-Tip! The umbrella thing is, I believe, also used in the real world. Not as a punishment for adventures but as a way of collecting cells from the prostate area, when that is playing up.

I only fear one of them now.

Argh!!!! :shock:

*edit: yup, I wrote "prostrate!"
 
rynner2 said:
Proff_Nebulous said:
Jo Brand the comedien still claims this is done in her act... not for any diagnosic reason but "For a laugh"
I wouldn't want to watch that act! :shock:
Fear not, Rynner - I think what Prof Nebulous meant to write was:

"In her act, Jo Brand claims that this is still done by Doctors "for a laugh"..."
 
Supposedly 'the umbrella' was one of the only 'treatments' in the 1500's. The cough & cup was done to our school in the 1970's as well.

There is an even better Vietnam era UL, which I think is in 'Chickenhawk'; the 'black clap', an untreatable, terrifying disease which the authorities wouldn't allow into the US. If you caught it you were exiled to a devil's island and relatives were informed that you were KIA!
 
I think it's in Dog years by Gunter Grass that the author describes German soldiers with syphilis kicking the coverings off electrical sockets and pissing on the exposed terminals.

Somehow the old umbrella treatment doesn't seem so bad after reading that.
 
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