16 year old Stephen Barton, a pupil at one of England's leading fee paying schools, returned from school for his Christmas holidays in what appeared to be some measure of discomfort. When quizzed by his mother, he said that he had received a "low blow" during a game of rugby and was sure that the passage of time would heal all ills. Unfortunately this proved not to be the case and on his third day home he was unable to walk. His mother insisted he visit the family doctor, a demand to which the incapacitated Stephen succumbed. On arrival at the surgery Stephen carefully removed his underwear to reveal that his scrotum was swollen to nearly four times it's natural size and was bruised almost entirely black with a number of small puncture wounds to the right hand side showing clear signs of established infection.

The doctor, realising that he was not personally equipped as a GP to properly treat such a "sporting" injury, immediately called an ambulance to take his patient to hospital. Stephen was rushed into hospital where he immediately underwent surgery to properly investigate and remedy the injury.

The infection was advanced and Stephen ended up having his right testicle removed as the infection appeared to have spread into the gland. To his surprise, the surgeon removed what were later identified as "a large number of brown glass splinters" from the boy's scrotum and the highly infected (and now ex)testicle. It was the surgeon's opinion that these had been "introduced" to Stephen's nether regions at the time of the injury.
Realising that this was not as it had first appeared, Stephen's mother asked what kind of assault he had been a victim of with the intention of taking serious issue with his not inexpensive school as to how such an accident could occur. In an effort not to make a fuss Stephen admitted to the following episode: At an unofficial end of term Christmas party after lights out, Stephen had drunkenly accepted a bet with the boys in his dorm that he could not fit both his testicles into a medium sized Marmite jar. With drunken confidence, and in order to win a large sum of money from his fellow students, Stephen did indeed manage to perform the trick. However, such is the shape of a Marmite pot that Stephen was not able to remove them from it after winning his money. Much to the enjoyment of the rest of the party-goers he crept off to the bathroom to try to remove the pot. Having been unable to remove the pot for two days and in extreme discomfort with his testicles swelling, Stephen took drastic measures and went to the empty CDT room and with a hammer smashed the pot. Yes that's right, he smashed a glass pot from around his testicles with a hammer! Unsurprisingly, this was not a clinical operation and also where the damage was really done. As they say - Marmite, you either love it or you hate it.

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