The use of nitrous oxide was discontinued in the UK as far as I know about 1960. But happy to stand corrected. Maybe you are talking of another jurisdiction?

As a boy in the fifties my dentist gave me a gas for an extraction with my father present. The idea was to ‘put you out’ or that is what I recall, as he told my father he was worried about how much gas it was taking to ‘put me out’.

I think that was nitrous, but maybe not. Anyone know about the history of dentistry and its use of any other gas other that nitrous oxide?

Altogether now:

“Hitler has only got one ball
The other is made of crystal meth….”

Yes, I seem to be “humourless”to you – the utter distasteful and disgraceful performances in England (with and without Nazi uniforms at parties have been perceived also here) and very well known is also that problems with Neofascist gangs is not only a problem here in Germany but in UK too. As well as in other European countries the last decades especially.

So give me a break – concerning your verbal abusive attitude ‘titled’ as ‘humour’.

Madhu

Hitler has often, both during the war and especially in recent decades, been dealt with here in Britain through a sort of ‘black’ humour, even at times making him into an absurd figure of fun. Such typically English comic approaches are ways to cope with an overwhelmingly monstrous phenomenon (although the information given in this programme and in the article I posted here did a similar sort of job in a different way, ie with extraordinary facts showing how inadequate the man actually was when under pressure in his final years).

Mentioning my name this way, in that context of your television BBC evening program, Satyadeva,
IS in a weird way, mean – in a mean way, weird.

Madhu

“Adolf Hitler was on crystal meth and a drug made from human faeces

TV’s fascination with the Nazis shows no sign of abating. And tonight Channel 4 pore over the private records of Adolf Hitler’s personal physician Theodor Morell, a vain, squat, fat and unpleasant quack doctor (pictured above behind the German dictator).

Morell was a fanatical note taker and carefully recorded every detail of Hitler’s physical condition on an almost daily basis (it is thought to protect himself in case his boss happened to die and the dictator’s henchmen wanted a scapegoat).

So what was Hitler’s health like? Bad does not even get close. And there is a ghoulish fascination to be had in being told in the programme that the chief proponent of Aryan supremacy was a profoundly sick man with bad breath, chronic flatulence and stomach cramps who used pills made from the faeces of soldiers to keep him going.

Yes, the chief of a land of supposedly great warriors was a physical wreck and a nervy hypochondriac who relied on 74 different kinds of medication at one point of his life.

More bizarrely, the cocktail of drugs he was on included crystal meth which is thought to have powered his crazed speechifying and once saw him rant, without interruption, at fellow dictator Benito Mussolini for four hours on end. And he was treated with leeches at various points in his life.

It’s a fascinating film showing how the madness of Nazism extended even into the arena of the physical well-being of its figurehead, a man sick in body as well as mind.

The sometimes breathy narration tells us that Morell’s actual journals have “never been seen on British television before” but the juicy information is already there in the history books. But that doesn’t stop this being a well-assembled, diverting and intimate insight into the corporeality of evil. And yes, Morell’s notes testify that Hitler did have two testicles.”

Nah, Hitler weren’t enlightened!

Behind all this seems to be the assumption that an enlightened being should be so beyond the body that he/she can tolerate any pain without identifying with it and without taking anything to relieve the pain. Whereas in fact the body might on the contrary become more and more sensitive as I guess many (unenlightened) meditators have experienced.

The other question of mind-expanding substances and spirituality is of course highly complicated. The mixture seems to have been an integral part of Indian culture, mentioned both in the Vedas and Patanjali. And I guess the reaction in Western societies is partly due to general puritanical ideals and the fear of the authorities that these substances can lift the veil and free people from the bondage of tradition, greed etc. (just as meditation can).

Whatever we put on it, I guess….