Human Body

This page contains a selection of unconsciously humorous test answers relating to health and the human body, gathered from a best-selling compilation by Viking Press published under the pseudonym of Alexander Abingdon in 1931. The selected extracts, edited and rearranged, are reproduced for readers in countries where the book is in the public domain, which, to the best of our knowledge, includes Australia (because more than 70 years have passed since the book's publication and because the so-called anonymous rule applies). For other countries, please check your local copyright laws.

For the sake of clarity, the following schoolboy howlers provide medical advice that you should NOT follow

Q. What would you do in the case of a man bleeding from a wound in the head? A. I would put a tourniquet around his neck.

Q. Describe the circulation of the blood. A. It flows down one leg and up the other.

Q. Describe the heart. All I know about the heart is that it is shaped like a Valentine.

For fractures: To see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth.

To prevent head colds: use an agonizer to spray nose until it drops into your throat

For a nose bleed: Put the nose lower than the body

Cure for toothache: Take a mouthful of cold water and sit on the stove till it boils

For dog bite: Put the dog away for several days. If he has not recovered, then kill it

When entering a room full of smoke: put a soiled handkerchief in your nose and mouth

To rescue a person who has fallen through the ice: take 2 or 3 handkerchiefs and tie them together and then take and shove a boy out to the hole. Throw the boy in the ice with the handkerchiefs and pull them out.

To remove dust from your eye: pull the eye over the nose

The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on top and you sit on the bottom.

The spinal column is a collection of bones running up and down your back and keeps you from being legs clean up to your neck

The cerebrum is a cavity in the head

Tobacco lowers the mentality of the heart

The fibula runs from the knee to the elbow on the inside

A person should take a bath once in the summer time and not quite so often in the winter time

The only sure way of detecting tuberculosis is by X-ray or with a Horoscope

Lack of vitamin A is not as bad as lack of vitamin B which in turn will not have so many bad affects as will the lack of vitamin C and so on down the alphabet