Saturday, June 25, 2016

Name That Old School Object

These gizmos were few and far between but it was always good to find one.  If they ever clogged up, close the lid and flush away to your heart's content. Here are some possible answers. Just pick one of the answers or enlighten me with one of your own.

It's a science project gone awry. It was designed to be a tornado replicator. Just add some water and you can experience all the fury of a typhoon.

It's actually a horizontal hopper. Just invert the bedpan, close the  lid and let it work it's magic.

This is actually a distilling device for custom making irrigation fluid.

It's actually an old school public address system. The nurse just bellows into the megaphone like device and everyone on the floor can hear her. "I need help with a lift in 221 bed 1 or visiting hours are now over."

I promise to reveal the correct answer real soon.

4 comments:

  1. Supercyclonic Hypersonic Problem Patient Disintegrator

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  2. Hopper!! I used to work with them!

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  3. Righto! That's a slop hopper. The device was originally designed to rinse and clean mops, but we found they had much utility to quickly send any liquid directly to the sanitary sewer system ( a misnomer if there ever was one.) At the conclusion of any shift there was a line of nurses with portable Gomco sutions and/or big glass suction bottles waitng to dump them into the slop hopper. The big advantage was that with the funnel shaped opening there was little risk of a backspash. With practice we could pop the big black stopper, dump the contents and re-cork the Gomco bottle all while holding our breath. Unfortunately there was only one slop hopper per floor, but it was worth the walk. I used to think of the slop hopper as the equivalent of the office water cooler. It was the perfect place to discuss hospital politics with other nurses.

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