Dear Dr. Schoenfeld: Usually I stack my dirty dishes at the bottom of the refrigerator for a day or two before I wash them. After washing them I do not rinse them (no hot running water).
What danger, if any, is there from a health viewpoint of these practices? I do not have any visitors to my place.
ANSWER: Bacteria and fungi can grow and multiply even in a refrigerator. For your own safety you should boil water on a stove or hot plate and use the hot water for your dishes.
Maybe you’d have some visitors if you gave more attention to your housekeeping.
Dear Dr. Hip Pocrates: I am a happily married woman. My husband and I enjoy cunnilingus. However, my husband has a beard, which I like except that it is scratchy and irritates my genital area.
Usually he wets his beard with good warm water so that it is comfortable during the act. But afterwards from the rubbing I am itchy sometimes for days.
I don’t want him to shave his beard. Can you recommend something that would soften his beard more than warm water and especially can you recommend some kind of soothing lotion (or something) that I can apply to the vaginal area afterwards to relieve the itching?
ANSWER: Two of my bearded friends responded to your problem with great empathy. One said he shaved his moustache and the area below his lower lip especially for his wife. The other, a Berkeley physician, wondered if your husband’s beard was too short for comfort. (A baby lotion or Vitamin A and D ointment will soothe chafed skin).
G. Legman, the erudite and witty author of Rationale of the Dirty Joke, has recently published another classic work, Oragenitalism Oral Techniques In Genital Excitation (Julian Press—1969 [!]. Legman devoted himself so enthusiastically to this subject that rumor persists he was asked to will his tongue to the British Museum. Naturally, the problem of beards is thoroughly discussed in Oragenitalism.
The man in cunnilinctus [!] simply places one of his palms, cupped tightly against his chin, so that only the back of his hand touches the woman’s vulva, which is completely protected in this way from the touch of his chin-stubble.
Legman ends his book by recalling a 1920s divorce suit against Charlie Chaplin in which the great man was “accused” of performing cunnilingus on his wife. “All married people do that,” replied Chaplin. “Most” would be more accurate. “But it has taken the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world, and Europe, half a century since then to admit it,” concludes Legman.
Dear Dr. Hip Pocrates: I have been smoking marijuana with a friend of mine (not steadily) for four years. We both suffer from eye irritation every time we smoke it. This irritation seems serious enough (extremely red, swollen and sensitive to light) to raise the question of whether or not it is possible to be allergic to marijuana smoke, or if it is a side effect occurring to a few unfortunate users.
Only a few of the many people we know that smoke marijuana seem to reach the point of eye irritation that we do. Since I have gotten contact lenses, about two years ago, it has become increasingly unbearable. My friend does not wear contact lenses yet her eyes become just as badly irritated.
ANSWER: Marijuana commonly causes red eyes due to a widening of blood vessels in the white of the eye. The severe symptoms you describe are unusual but could be caused by this effect of marijuana. Allergy to marijuana is another possibility but you’d probably have other symptoms such as wheezing or sneezing.
See your family physician or an ophthalmologist if you think they can dig your problem without freaking. Or call the nearest Free Clinic and be seen there or by a member of the volunteer staff. But do not use contact lenses over irritated eyes.
Perhaps it won’t be long before people can freely tell all their problems to physicians. The Student A.M.A., formerly a puppet organization, has recently endorsed many proposals directly contrary to the views of the entrenched medical establishment.
At their annual meeting in Philadelphia, the Student A.M.A. passed proposals including these:
“That S.A.M.A. go on record supporting the view that problems of drug abuse are not primarily criminal problems but are health problems with legal implications, and as such must be dealt with by health professionals.”
“That S.A.M.A. endorse that the use of cannabis be governed by laws similar to those already existing pertaining to the use of alcohol.”
“That S.A.M.A. endorse the concept of methadone programs and other programs for the legal distribution by licensed medical centers at minimum costs of narcotic drug substitutes for the chronic maintenance of addicted persons.”
The medical students also recommend that all U.S. medical schools have at least 20% of their classes filled by minority members by the 1975-76 academic year.
Further evidence of progress—the S.A.M.A. resolutions were prominently featured in the A.M.A. News.
But other inanities continue. Senator Dodd has attempted to blame the My Lai massacre on the use of drugs since otherwise American soldiers couldn’t murder women and children in the style of the Nazis, could they?
And the June 16th issue of Look magazine has an article called “Does our Army fight on drugs?” by Joel Kaplan, M.D., formerly a major in Vietnam. Describing the Vietnam variety of marijuana, Dr. Kaplan says “Patients told me that pot in Vietnam produces a trip like LSD. It is a hallucinogen, and they said that, depending on the stress you were under, they often became angry, upset and/or paranoid.”
It’s easy to understand one could become “angry, upset and/or paranoid” in Vietnam, stoned or not. But drawing conclusions about marijuana in this manner is like studying the effects of alcohol using a sample of skid row bums. Obviously very few people’ who use alcohol wind up on skid row.
Later in the article Dr. Kaplan describes a Green Beret who had smoked marijuana, ingested a barbiturate and injected opium: “He was screaming and trying to fight. I had to give him sedation. He seemed about 6 feet, 2 inches and 200 pounds. The next day I saw him in the ward; he was 5 feet, 6 inches and 140 pounds.”
Some pills make you larger, some pills make you small….
Dr. Schoenfeld welcomes your letters. Write to him at 161 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, Ca. 94702.