'Could not feel more disconnected'

A long-lost sport once feared dead is being dusted off and played again in the villages where it was born. “Knurr-and-spell” was once played widely in pubs across England’s South Yorkshire, but had all but vanished by the 1970s. The quirky ball game which bears a similarity to golf  sees players hit a clay ball […] The post Forgotten Centuries-Old Ball Game Making a Surprise Comeback After 50 years appeared first on Good News Network.

In the wake of new crime data, Republicans in Congress are telling The Daily Signal that President Donald Trump is delivering on his “law and order” promises. At Thursday’s White House press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt discussed new findings from the Council on Criminal Justice that showed that the nationwide murder rate has dropped to its lowest number since 1900. Overall, violent crime has reached levels last seen in 2019, when Trump’s first administration enacted similar policies to fight crime, the report noted. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal the president’s “respect for law and order” is “saving American lives,” stating that this is a reversal from the “last four years of lawlessness.” “Between the apprehension and deportation of illegal criminals as well as a renewed focus safety in American cities, lives are being saved,” Lee added. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal that “The historic decline in crime across the country is a direct result of President Trump’s strong law-and-order agenda and decisive border policies, which empower our patriotic men and women in law enforcement to do their jobs effectively.” President Trump promised to restore law and order to the United States.Newly released data proves he is delivering: the murder rate in America’s largest cities plummeted in 2025 to its lowest level since at least 1900 — marking the largest single-year drop in murders on record.… pic.twitter.com/e5oADwP4wW— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) February 5, 2026 “Governor Walz should take note of what real leadership looks like,” Roy added. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., who pledged to continue to fight with Trump “side-by-side” in “backing the blue, deporting criminal illegals, and securing our border,” told The Daily Signal that “crime is coming down because President Trump is the Law-and-Order President.” The president has mobilized federal law enforcement agencies at the beginning of his second term to help lower crime in American cities. Republicans believe the Trump administration’s attention to crime is the main driver behind murders plummeting by 21% since 2024, carjackings dropping by 61% since 2023, and shoplifting’s 10% decline since 2024. One of the American cities highlighted in the report was Atlanta, Georgia, which saw increased presence of federal law enforcement in 2025. According to the report, the murder rate has dropped by 14% since 2024. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., who urged Trump to increase federal law enforcement presence in Atlanta last year, told The Daily Signal that the president is “committed” to prevent another “Laken Riley” by “restoring law and order.” Laken Riley was murdered by an illegal immigrant while at the University of Georgia in 2024. “His successful federal interventions speak for themselves,” Carter added. “Atlanta – under Democrat leadership – continues to battle a migrant crime problem.” Another key city mentioned in the report was Richmond, Virginia, which saw a 59% drop in homicide rates since 2024. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., welcomed immigration law enforcement in the state in 2025. Gov. Abigail Spanberger, however, has directed local law enforcement to severely reduce collaboration with federal law enforcement.   The lead researcher from the report, Ernesto Lopez, described the overall drop in crime, specifically homicide, as “welcome news,” and noted that the homicide rate spiked significantly in 2020. On Thursday, Leavitt told reporters that “under President Trump in 2025 the Federal Bureau of Investigation increased violent crime arrest by 100% compared to the prior year.” “The FBI also conducted more than 67,000 arrest in the past year, which she mentioned is 197% more than in the previous year,” Leavitt added. Levitt also noted that the FBI has also disrupted 1800 gangs and criminal enterprises, which marks a 200% increase from 2024, arrested 1,700 child predators, and more than 300 human traffickers across the country. “The FBI has also arrested 6 out of 10 of the FBI’s most wanted,” Levitt claimed. The post Lawmakers Say Trump Is Delivering on ‘Law and Order’ as Crime Plummets appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If the United Nations launches an investigation in Minnesota, it should be into the plight of crime victims, a Department of Homeland Security official says.   This week, the American Civil Liberties Union asked the United Nations to launch a probe into the Trump administration’s actions in the state, regarding immigration enforcement and response to agitators.   This comes amid the administration’s claims of escalating danger for agents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as in Customs and Border Protection.  “The ACLU is once again demonizing ICE and CBP law enforcement [who] are facing a more than 1300% increase in assaults and 8000% increase in death threats against them,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Signal in a statement.   The agency released statistics in late January that showed a massive increase in threats and assaults against federal agents.   “The ACLU has shown time and time again it does not care about the innocent American lives taken at the hands of gang members, murderers, drug traffickers, and rapists who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin added. “Perhaps the United Nations should investigate the ‘human rights crisis’ that is Minneapolis’ crime rate.”  DHS referred to illegal aliens that ICE arrested in Minnesota who had been charged with violent crimes.   This included one arrest of a foreign national who is a suspected terrorist. Another was previously convicted for terroristic threats, domestic assault, and driving while intoxicated.  Another illegal alien wasn arrested for malicious punishment of a child. Similarly, another was arrested for malicious punishment of a child and disorderly conduct.  One criminal illegal alien was convicted of domestic violence. Another was convicted of larceny.   DHS noted another criminal illegal alien from Cuba was convicted of drug trafficking, while another was convicted of assault.  The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Minnesota sent an “urgent submission” to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, asking them to investigate alleged discrimination against protesters in the state by federal immigration enforcement.   The U.N. committee defines early warning measures as “aimed at preventing existing situations escalating into conflicts.” It defines urgent procedures as responding to “problems requiring immediate attention to prevent or limit the scale or number of serious violations.”  The ACLU request calls for the U.N. committee to use its early warning and urgent action procedures to probe alleged violations of international human rights obligations.   “The Trump administration’s egregious crackdown in Minnesota is not only flouting the Constitution but also United States international human rights obligations that prohibit the use of racial and ethnic profiling, extra-judicial killings, and unlawful use of force against protesters and observers,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.    The ACLU did not immediately respond to inquiries for this story. The post Homeland Security: ACLU ‘Demonizing’ ICE Agents With Demand for UN Probe appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Could It Be That the 2020 Election Fraud Will Be Exposed?

Back on Tuesday, podcaster, professor, and man of perpetual solemnity Scott Galloway joined both CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and MS NOW’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle to promote a scheme were consumers should either pause or cancel their subscriptions to big tech companies as a way to get the industry to end their relationship with President Trump, which he alleged was akin to manufacturing bosses getting cozy with Adolf Hitler. Cooper was up first, and he wondered, “Have you heard from any of the CEOs of companies that you're focusing on?”   Earlier that night, he told CNN "This is pure grift. And I want to create an analogy, a dark one in early 30s Germany. A lot of the titans of the manufacturing industry in Germany essentially said to Hitler, 'If you crush the unions and make us more profitable, we'll ignore the… pic.twitter.com/31wLQGYhIq — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 6, 2026   Galloway claimed that, “I've heard from about a third of them. They're very polite. They understand, and then they go on to say how upset they are about the president's programs, but that they can't speak publicly. And I'm empathetic to that. A good autocrat rewards his allies and punishes his enemies.” He then got to his reduction ad Hitlerum: So, unless it's a collective action, unless they all speak together, I think it's going to be very hard for anyone to go first. But what I remind them is that in early 30s Germany, Hitler made a deal with the largest captains of the manufacturing industry that if they said nothing about his rise and what they sensed was a slow burn to fascism, that they would crush the—that he would crush the trade unions and they would make a lot more money. And then when he rose to power, it was too late. And I think that is a decent or an apt analogy for what's going on here. According to Galloway, “That is, according to the private text messages I get from these individuals, they do not like what's going on, but they're afraid to speak up. And also they see money at the end of the day.” He further declared, “To believe that it could not happen here is naive to history. These folks are enabling what I believe is pretty depraved behavior. And it is time for CEOs to collectively speak up and say what they're saying privately, explicitly to the markets and to the president.” A few hours later on MS NOW, Ruhle listed a couple of examples that she thought were relevant, “Yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a personal visit to the Blue Origin headquarters and was greeted by none other than its founder, Jeff Bezos. This is days after Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to Melania. She was paid tens of millions of dollars. They spent tens of millions of dollars marketing this film. Is this the access Bezos is paying for? Because Blue Origin is his big business that loses huge amounts of money and could certainly benefit from government contracts.”   Back on Tuesday, Professor/podcaster/man of perpetual solemnity Scott Galloway told MS NOW that he tells big tech execs "that in early 30s, Germany, Hitler made a deal with the largest captains of the manufacturing industry that if they said nothing about his rise and what they… pic.twitter.com/GcwgPApG5u — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 6, 2026   This was one day before the massive layoffs at The Washington Post, which Ruhle no doubt would have included if she had waited a day. As it was, she neglected to mention that Hegseth’s visit was merely part of a larger tour related to the American defense industry and that particular visit was focused on Space Force and NASA-related matters. Nevertheless, Galloway repeated his tortured Hitler analogy, “This is pure grift. And I want to create an analogy, a dark one in early 30s Germany. A lot of the titans of the manufacturing industry in Germany essentially said to Hitler, ‘If you crush the unions and make us more profitable, we'll ignore the slow burn to fascism.’ And then when it kind of got out of control, it was too late. And I see the same thing here.” Galloway also repeated his claims to have heard from these people directly, “And you've probably heard from them, and so have I, via text message that they hate themselves. I'm like, ‘Well, I hate you too.’ And until you speak out, this, this autocracy, kleptocracy that is enabling a slow burn to fascism from the people that he cares about and that the markets care about, they need to speak out. Enough is enough. This is leading us to a very dark place.” Even if one agrees with Ruhle and Galloway about the price of the Melania documentary, it is a massive stretch to bring Hitler into the conversation. When the big tech companies did what President Biden wanted them to do on “disinformation,” did CNN, MSNBC, and Scott Galloway compare him to Hitler? No, of course not. Here are transcripts for the February 3 shows: CNN Anderson Cooper 360 2/3/2026 8:48 PM ET ANDERSON COOPER: Have you heard from any of the CEOs of companies that you're focusing on? SCOTT GALLOWAY: I've heard from about a third of them. They're very polite. They understand, and then they go on to say how upset they are about the president's programs, but that they can't speak publicly. And I'm empathetic to that. A good autocrat rewards his allies and punishes his enemies. So, unless it's a collective action, unless they all speak together, I think it's going to be very hard for anyone to go first. But what I remind them is that in early 30s Germany, Hitler made a deal with the largest captains of the manufacturing industry that if they said nothing about his rise and what they sensed was a slow burn to fascism, that they would crush the—that he would crush the trade unions and they would make a lot more money. And then when he rose to power, it was too late. And I think that is a decent or an apt analogy for what's going on here. And that is according to the private text messages I get from these individuals, they do not like what's going on, but they're afraid to speak up. And also they see money at the end of the day. Notice how the tariffs do not affect these companies, that there's been carve outs, that there's talk of all kinds of loans to backstop the incredible infrastructure expenses here. This, to believe that it could not happen here is naive to history. These folks are enabling what I believe is pretty depraved behavior. And it is time for CEOs to collectively speak up and say what they're saying privately, explicitly to the markets and to the president. *** MS NOW The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle 2/3/2026 11:53 PM ET STEPHANIE RUHLE: Yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a personal visit to the Blue Origin headquarters and was greeted by none other than its founder, Jeff Bezos. This is days after Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to Melania. She was paid tens of millions of dollars. They spent tens of millions of dollars marketing this film. Is this the access Bezos is paying for? Because Blue Origin is his big business that loses huge amounts of money and could certainly benefit from government contracts. SCOTT GALLOWAY: This is pure grift. And I want to create an analogy, a dark one in early 30s Germany. A lot of the titans of the manufacturing industry in Germany essentially said to Hitler, “If you crush the unions and make us more profitable, we'll ignore the slow burn to fascism.” And then when it kind of got out of control, it was too late. And I see the same thing here. Notice how these big tech companies are not subject to tariffs. That Apple was somehow able to get out of these tariffs. We're even talking now about some sort of bill that might come back with the full faith of the U.S. government, some of these huge infrastructure investments. When Tim Cook goes to the premier with an inscribed hard disk drive, when Amazon overpays for the Melania documentary, this is pure pay for play. When the Ellison family says to Warner shareholders, you should accept our bid because it's more likely to go through because I'm a Republican donor and have my head so far up the orifice of the president, you can't see my legs, that is an admission by these individuals that they now recognize the government as pay for play. And you've probably heard from them, and so have I, via text message that they hate themselves. I'm like, “Well, I hate you too.” And until you speak out, this, this autocracy, kleptocracy that is enabling a slow burn to fascism from the people that he cares about and that the markets care about, they need to speak out. Enough is enough. This is leading us to a very dark place. And what I'm suggesting is an economy that is 70 percent consumer driven, that our hidden weapon that's been hiding in plain sight is our consumer spending. And if you want the biggest bang for the buck, go after big tech subscription services. It is not a huge price to pay and it will have a big impact.

Am I sexist? I think there are differences between men and women -- traits beyond obvious physical ones. But when I was young, feminist leaders said there were no differences. The only reason men ran most things was sexism. There was plenty of that. One example people forget: Until 1974, women couldn’t get a credit card without their husband’s permission. A women’s movement was long overdue. I believed the new “experts” who said, if we raise children in gender-neutral ways, men and women will behave similarly. Then I had kids. Now I understand that boys and girls are just different. But for some reason, we’re not supposed to acknowledge that. “Aren’t women, in general, better nurturers?” I asked Gloria Steinem. “No,” she snapped. “Next question.” Today many people still avoid talking about differences. But not Heather Mac Donald! “If we weren’t so insane, it would be perfectly obvious that there are innate differences,” she says in my new video. She points out that men explored the world, not women. “Their societies wouldn’t allow it!” I say. “That’s true,” she notes, “but they haven’t been doing much in the interim.” “Men drove the Thirty Years’ War ... the Hundred Years’ War,” I say. “Maybe it would be better if women managed governments.” “Some of the Green parties, the female dominated parties in Europe, they’re the war parties,” she replies. “They’re all for continuing to arm Ukraine, for involvement in the Serbian conflict ... A lot of female EU politicians are no more pacifistic than some of their male colleagues.” She points out that it was men who “developed ideas of constitutional government, due process, human rights. Those are much more powerful than the Thirty Years’ War.” Men, she says, have more “passion for novelty, competitiveness, aggression.” It’s why more inventions are made by men, and businesses started by men.     “You have to be a very ideologically dominated parent,” adds Mac Donald, “not to notice that there are differences between male and female children almost from the start, as far as levels of aggression, the types of toys they gravitate towards.” Some of this is not good for men. “Males have a greater predilection towards insanity, towards really stupid behavior. ... There’s obviously individual exceptions,” adds Mac Donald. “There’s highly aggressive, competitive females and highly nurturing, empathetic males ... But we’re talking averages. The average male, there’s a greater change that he’s going to be a risk taker and seeker of knowledge.” A recent study blames “unconscious bias in the selection process” for the lack of women in CEO positions. But Mac Donald says it’s not sexism that keeps women out of CEO roles. “Nobody’s keeping females out. They just aren’t interested. Google is desperate to hire more females. Nobody’s preventing females from doing an AI startup! ... They don’t have that same drive to stay up until 3:00 a.m., eating cold pizza, coding! That drive to conquer facts and data is disproportionately male.” Women, on the other hand, laughs Mac Donald, “They’re influencers! They’re talking about makeup (and) fashion.” Really? Is she saying women are less useful? “They are very useful for raising children,” she answers. She also notes that many women accomplish remarkable things. “George Elliot and Edith Wharton are great novelists,” says Mac Donald. “We’ve got great female composers, Fannie Mendelssohn, Cecile Chaminade, Amy Beach. I want to hear all of them, absolutely! But I am not going to try to tear down an institution because it is predominantly male.” One institution women have harmed, she says, is the university, because its civilizational mission has been compromised by women claiming victimhood. “The claims of ‘unsafety,’” she says, are hysterical neurosis. “You now have portraits of white male scientists being taken down because they might make female medical students feel unsafe.” She says pursuit of knowledge is under threat because women care less about free speech. One study did find 60 percent of women favor “inclusivity” over free speech, while 71 percent of men favor protecting free speech. “When you ask either (group), which do you value more? ... A vast majority of males choose the pursuit of truth, academic freedom, whatever the cost. The females favor emotional safety and equity.” “So what?” I push back. “Both are good qualities.” “No, they’re not!” she scolds me. “The university exists for the pursuit of truth.” Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Government Gone Wild: Exposing the Truth Behind the Headlines.”

Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron -- the guy with that transparently ridiculous claim about their anti-Trump animus, "We're not at war, we're at work" -- was the featured leftist lecturer on the Post's job cuts on the February 4 PBS News Hour.  Anchor Geoff Bennett asked where it went wrong with Post owner Jeff Bezos, and Baron began with "I think that he became sort of detached in about 2019, when his marriage broke up, when Amazon was struggling later in 2020, when the -- Amazon was struggling with the pandemic and all the aspects of that." What? Bezos and Amazon made out like bandits in 2020 when everyone was staying in their homes and ordering everything in. The trend analysis continued:  ON PBS @NewsHour, former WashPost editor Marty Baron blamed the Post's job cuts on all their pro-Trump mistakes. They failed to endorse Kamala, they funded a Melania documentary. Bezos was on stage at Trump's inauguration. So their whole business model is keeping leftists happy. pic.twitter.com/6L9i1NC8bD — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) February 6, 2026 BARON: And then I think he really became -- took a real turn after it looked like Trump was going to be elected president yet again. And that was in 2024. And 11 days before the presidential election in 2024, they killed an editorial for -- that was endorsing Kamala Harris. He said the paper wouldn't endorse ever again for president. And hundreds of thousands of subscribers canceled at that time, aggravating the financial problems that they had. Subsequent to that, he did all sorts of things that made things even worse, appearing at the inauguration on the stage with Donald Trump, buying the Melania so-called documentary for an exorbitant price, buying the right -- Amazon buying the rights to The Apprentice. And Amazon had bought the rights to Melania's documentary as well. And then completely changing the opinion pages so that essentially they have no columnists who are really left of center. And they're very deferential to Trump. And I think they lack a moral core. And so all of that has driven subscribers away. And so for every subscriber that they get coming in through the front door because of the high-quality news coverage, I think they're losing maybe two subscribers out the back door. Of course, I don't know the numbers exactly, but clearly they have been losing a lot of subscribers. So the business model is apparently keeping your most fervently anti-Trump subscribers happy, the #Resistance subscribers.  Then Baron closed with more unintentional humor: "We are not stenographers and we should not be propagandists. And that is the role that The Washington Post has historically played, and that's the role that it should continue to play." When people think of the Post, they think of the scandal crusading of Watergate and Iran-Contra and Russian collusion. They haven't "historically" proven that they aren't more like stenographers when Democrats are in power.  PS: Baron was also featured as the expert with Steve Inskeep on NPR's Morning Edition. 

Sunday February 8, marked two years since ABC co-host Sunny Hostin announced the results of an investigation into her family history uncovered the fact she was descended from slave owners. At the time, The View co-host showed defiance to her critics by proclaiming “I still believe in reparations.” Yet, in the two years that followed her revelations, Hostin did not appear to have made an effort to find or to pay what she owed to the descendants of those her family enslaved. “But I was reluctant to do it because I just sensed that there could be something in my family history that would be disappointing,” she explained at the time, the information having been derived from an appearance on Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. Pulling the Band-Aid off, Hostin admitted to the revelation right way, with some light quips from co-host Joy Behar: HOSTIN: But what I found out was that my mother's family while they are Puerto Rican, they actually originate from Spain, and the reason that they moved to Puerto Rico is because the slave trade had been sort of canceled in Spain and then Curaçao and then they moved all their slaves to Puerto Rico. So, the family business, I have been told, that they were printers and journalists but they were, in fact, enslavers. [Nervous laughter] And my mother --  BEHAR: A hush fell over the audience. HOSTIN: -- was deeply disappointing and it's deeply disappointing...   This Sunday (February 8), marks 2 years since this Sunny Hostin announced to The View audience that - despite all the race baiting she had done on TV - she was descended from slave owners who tried to out run abolition: HOSTIN: I was. And he gave me some surprising revelations… pic.twitter.com/41VjSUc3pO — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 6, 2026   Amid their conversation, co-host Sara Haines, who sometimes played the role of speedbump to Hostin’s racial politics, pressed her on how the discovery could change her outlook: “Sunny, how does this change you, though? You mentioned your mom was upset and this was shocking and maybe deep down, you kind of resisted it. How has this changed you knowing what you're hearing?” Hostin reiterated that being the progeny of slave owners was “disappointing” and “a bummer,” but then lashed out at critics. “I still believe in reparations! By the way. So, y'all can stop texting me and emailing me and saying that I'm a white girl and I don't deserve reparations!” she angrily shouted. “That's a lot, so I still believe in reparations. I still believe this country has a lot to do in terms of racial justice.” But that dedication to “racial justice” and belief in reparations seemed to only apply to what benefits she would personally receive. In the two years since the show aired, Hostin had not made any apparent effort to find the descendants of the human beings her family enslaved, let alone try to pay them reparations.   While calling the revelations a "bummer" she went on to snap at her critics and insisted "I still believe in reparations." pic.twitter.com/Pdh4mgOpI7 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 6, 2026   ABC and The View did not respond to NewsBusters’ multiple requests for comment nor any of our fair questions about Hostin’s activity over the last two years. Here are those questions: -Has Hostin made any effort to find out who her family enslaved? -Does she know who her family enslaved? -If they have any, has she attempted to reach out to any of their living descendants? -Has she offered to pay them reparations or set up any sort of fund for those descendants? -How much is she willing to pay them in reparations? -If she hasn't done any of these things, why not? Over the years, Hostin had insisted that she personally deserved to receive reparations from both the U.S. and U.K. (despite being a multimillionaire TV co-host). Therefore, it appeared as though Hostin’s true belief was ‘reparations for me, but not for thee,’ especially from her own pocket.

Today I Found Out/YouTube “Oh, you’re just blowing smoke up my ass,” is something you might hear someone say when they think you’re just telling them what they want to hear. But in 18th-century England, blowing smoke up your ass was an actual medical procedure, and no, we aren’t kidding. According to Gizmodo, one of the earliest reports of such a practice took place in England in 1746, when a woman was left unconscious after nearly drowning. Her husband took the suggestion of administering a tobacco enema to revive her, a practice that was rising in popularity at the time as a possible answer to the frequent, local instances of drowning. Left with little choice, the man took a tobacco-filled pipe, inserted the stem into his wife’s rectum, and, blew smoke into it. As strange as it may sound today, it reportedly worked: the hot embers of the tobacco leaf jolting the wife back into consciousness, and the practice grew quickly from there. But where did the idea to use tobacco as a form of medicine come from? Native Americans, who used the plant to treat various ailments, invented what we refer to as the tobacco enema. English botanist, physician, and astrologer Nicholas Culpeper borrowed from these practices to treat pain in his native England with methods including enemas to treat inflammation as a result of colic or a hernia. ] Years later, English physician Richard Mead would be among the earliest proponents of using the herbal enema as a recognized practice and helped bring its use, however short-lived, into mainstream culture. By the late 1700s, blowing smoke had become a regularly applied medical procedure, mostly used to revive people thought to be nearly deceased, usually drowning victims. The process was so common, in fact, that several major waterways kept the instrument, consisting of a bellows and flexible tube, nearby in case of such emergencies. The tobacco smoke was believed to increase the heart rate of the victim and encourage respiratory functions, as well as “dry out” the insides of the waterlogged individual, making this method of delivery more preferred than breathing air directly into the lungs via the mouth. Wikimedia CommonsA textbook drawing of a tobacco smoke enema device from 1776. Before the implementation of an official instrument, tobacco enemas were typically administered with a standard smoking pipe. This proved to be an impractical solution as the stem of a pipe was much shorter than the tube of the instrument that would come later, making both the spread of diseases such as cholera and the accidental inhalation of the contents of the patient’s anal cavity an unfortunate yet common possibility. With the tobacco enema’s rise in popularity in full swing, London doctors William Hawes and Thomas Cogan together formed The Institution For Affording Immediate Relief To Persons Apparently Dead From Drowning in 1774. The group was later named the much simpler Royal Humane Society, a charitable organization that “grants awards for acts of bravery in the saving of human life and, also, for the restoration of life by resuscitation.” It is still in operation today and is now sponsored by the Queen of England. Wikimedia CommonsThomas Cogan The practice of awarding life-saving citizens has been a hallmark of the society since its inception. Back then, anyone known to revive a drowning victim was awarded four guineas, equal to around $160 today. Blowing smoke, of course, is no longer in use today. However, the tobacco enema had a good run during the 18th century, and its usage even spread to treat additional ailments such as typhoid, headache, and stomach cramping. But with the 1811 discovery that tobacco is actually toxic to the cardiac system, however, the popularity of the practice of tobacco smoke enemas dwindled quickly from there. For more medical marvels and curiosities like tobacco smoke enemas, check out the most painful medical procedures of medieval times and the hydro-electric belt, which used self-electrocution as a cure for everything from depression to constipation. The post When “Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass” Was Much More Than Just A Saying appeared first on All That's Interesting.