What’s The Smelliest Organ?

Last week we asked a handsome young doctor about blood, guts and butthole hairs. We were so entertained by how they used their years of education and experience to answer stupid questions we pondered on the toilet, it seemed only logical to ask another bright young thing about some other disgusting shit. This week’s expert: Dr. Tristan Coleman.

VICE: How much blood is not enough blood?

Dr. Tristan Coleman MD: The loss of about 40% of your total blood volume is usually not survivable without resuscitation. This is probably about 2L of blood loss in most people. 

What’s the smelliest organ?
The Gastro-intestinal tract, from mouth to anus, often smells bad.

If you took your eyes out, swapped them around and put them back in (sewing everything up properly, of course) would they work like normal?
Assuming you could cut, then reattach the optic nerve on the opposite side (and that it would regrow adequately), plus all the fine blood vessels supplying the retina, plus the very fine muscles attaching to the eye ball, you’ll still have a couple of things to overcome. The optics would work fine (i.e. the lenses) but you may have trouble with your optic disc (the blind spot) where the optic nerve attaches to the retina. You have no light receptors here, and it’s off center, so your brain might have to just to ‘fill in’ the image at this point. Brains are pretty good at doing this kind of thing, though. Also the fovea (the part of the retina with the greatest number of receptors i.e. the ‘focus point’) is ever so slightly off center too, but once again, I think the brain would quickly readjust to this.

So in other words yes. What is the dumbest question you’ve ever been asked?
Everyone knows varying amounts about their health and bodies. No such thing as a dumb question.

How much of your own body could you eat before you’d have to stop?
Depends on how you approach it I guess, but blood loss will probably stop even the most determined in a matter of minutes. If you approach it over the course of a lifetime, you could eat plenty, maybe kilograms of hair, nails, skin as well as liters of secretions without ever having to stop. 

If you had to break your own leg, say for a bet, what would be the best (most painless) way to do it?
With an anesthetist present to administer anesthetic agents simultaneously with you snapping the bone. It would be a feat of coordination and stupidity.

How many times would you have to pull a fingernail out before it stopped growing back?
Just once if you do it properly.

That was our last question. Thanks Doctor.
You’re welcome.

Previously – Could You Get Drunk Off a Drunk Person’s Vomit?