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From: rlb@darkstar.uwsa.edu (Orne Batmagoo)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Observation! [Lurker question]
Date: 15 Jan 1999 21:05:10 GMT

In article <36969363.21FDF392@usa.net>,

"Chris W." <chrisdartHORMEL@usa.net> writes:

> A quick deja news search on "urine+jar" reveals that this was discussed
> in September '97 (although I clearly remember it being discussed more
> recently). It is in the FAQ thusly:
>
> Fb.Prof. demos test for diabetes by dipping finger in several flasks of
> urine and then licking it. Then asks students to do same. They do,
> after which he says he dipped with one finger and licked with the other.

Hate to quibble with the FAQ, which has been so assiduously and painstakingly reasearched, but in my book [1], this one is a Tb. [2] instead.

Arthur Conan Doyle claimed to have witnessed it in the classroom [3] of the real-life Dr. Joseph Bell, who was the inpiration for Sherlock Holmes. While it's possible that Doyle (or is it Conan-Doyle?) was simply vectoring an older UL, note that he didn't say he heard it from a FOAF, but that he witnessed it himself. Maybe he did that to make the story sound more believable.

I don't care very deeply about this, but personally I am inclined to give him the benifit of the doubt, take him at his word, and call this one "believed true, but not conclusively proven." I mean, there _was_ such a physician, whose intellectual prowess Doyle found impressive enough that he modeled the Holmes character after him.

One could never prove, beyond _all_ doubt, any of the propositions that Doyle 1) made this up himself; 2) witnessed it; or 3) heard it from somebody else. Nonetheless, Arthur Conan Doyle says he saw this with his own eyes in the Edinburgh classroom of Dr. Joseph Bell. [4] I can't think of a compelling reason to disbelieve him. [5] At least he can be recognized as vector zero for the UL.
---

[1] It's just a figure of speech.

[2] Believed true, but not conclusively proven.

[3] Sir Arthur attended medical school, but later abandoned medicine as a career.

[4] El Nino ate my references.

[5] Well, maybe because he believed in fairies.

--
Orne "and that which remains, however absurd it may seem, is the truth"