Y allí, en medio de su presentación, se bajó los pantalones

Los viejos del lugar recordarán el curioso caso de Giles Brindley, el profesor que, para probar diversas sustancias que creía que podían ayudar contra la disfunción eréctil, las inyectó en su propio pene y esperó a ver los resultados. Luego escribió un artículo sobre la experiencia. In the course of developing treatments for erectile impotence and priapism that use them, I made, on myself as subject, y puede parecer un chiste, pero no lo es.

No lo es porque, sin quererlo, hemos empezado por el final: por el artículo publicado en 1986. Un compañero de trabajo me envió el otro día la primera mitad de la historia (la buena, la chusca, la divertida): aquélla en la que el bueno de Brindley, con su trabajo aún en un estado preliminar, lo presenta en un congreso. Cuenta la peripecia Laurence Klotz, que estuvo presente en la charla, en un artículo publicado en BJU International en 2005. El título, How (not) to communicate new scientific information: a memoir of the famous Brindley lecture (página 6 del PDF), ya nos pone sobre aviso. Agárrense, que empieza:

The lecture was given in a large auditorium, with a raised lectern separated by some stairs from the seats. This was an evening programme, between the daytime sessions and an evening reception. It was relatively poorly attended, perhaps 80 people in all. Most attendees came with their partners, clearly on the way to the reception.

[...]

The Professor wanted to make his case in the most convincing style possible. He indicated that, in his view, no normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be erotically stimulating or erection-inducing. He had, he said, therefore injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes (hence the track-suit) to make it possible to exhibit the results. He stepped around the podium, and pulled his loose pants tight up around his genitalia in an attempt to demonstrate his erection.

At this point, I, and I believe everyone else in the room, was agog. I could scarcely believe what was occurring on stage. But Prof. Brindley was not satisfied. He looked down sceptically at his pants and shook his head with dismay. `Unfortunately, this doesn’t display the results clearly enough’. He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing.

But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, `I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence’. With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row. As he approached them, erection waggling before him, four or five of the women in the front rows threw their arms up in the air, seemingly in unison, and screamed loudly. The scientific merits of the presentation had been overwhelmed, for them, by the novel and unusual mode of demonstrating the results.

The screams seemed to shock Professor Brindley, who rapidly pulled up his trousers, returned to the podium, and terminated the lecture.

Por si necesitasen ayuda imaginándose a un científico bajando del estrado, pantalones por las rodillas, herramienta en ristre, dirigiéndose hacia el público, me veo en la obligación de publicar una imagen del profesor Brindley:

La imagen está sacada de este artículo escrito por Allan Showalter, médico, que ha escrito una crónica sobre el suceso recopilando información variada, aunque da como artículo ganador al que acabo de citarles, por provenir de una fuente que vivió el evento de primera mano (es un decir). Showalter se decidió a escribir a Brindley y le preguntó en un, según sus propias palabras, e-mail demasiado largo y elaborado (a rather elaborately (over)written e-mail), sus motivos para haber hecho lo que hizo. La respuesta de Brindley la muestro a continuación, íntegra:

“The Chairman asked me to.”

Para terminar, el propio Laurence Klotz comenta en la entrada del blog de Showalter (la negrita es mía):

Fascinating article. I am delighted that Professor Brindley’s lecture is getting the historical attention I always thought it deserved. I wasn’t aware of the other reports on the lecture. To clarify: an extraordinary aspect of the lecture was the matter of fact way in which it was given. There was no element of showmanship, or any suggestion of exhibitionism. There was no humour or any hint that what he was doing might be seen as unusual. It was, in fact, a dry lecture (aside from the topic). He was fully clothed until the moment when he stepped from behind the dias. There was no zipper; he simply dropped his track pants. There was also, as I recall, no touching.

Giles Brindley no quería fardar: simplemente quería demostrar que sus resultados eran concluyentes y (gasp) sólidos. En su intento por hacer entender al público que sus métodos funcionaban, se le fue la mano. Ya saben aquello de que el camino al infierno está empedrado de buenas intenciones.