Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: stana on 30/11/2007 16:45:19
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Hey guys, when i was a kid i swallowed a 2p coin..i was wondering..what does my body do with this 2p coin? Is it mixed with an acid with a ph of two?? isnt tht acidic enough to damage the coin? more importantly..could it damage me!?
also..my liver takes the goodness outa food and decids what to do with it yes? so what does my liver do with my money??
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I think that your body simply didd not digest the coin. In due course the coin probably re-apeared but people might not have been too willing to accept it as payment. It's likely to have been a bit corroded on the way through.
Having said that, you ought to have talked to a physician about it.
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Having said that, you ought to have talked to a physician about it.
Why?
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Although in theory the hydrochloric acid in the stomach could desolve the coin, for the most part, I have more often heard about solid metal objects either just lodging in the intestines for a very long time (possibly for the rest of your life), or passing through the other end.
I doubt it will corrode much, since the guts are anaerobic, and although the acids may take a small amount of metal off the surface, more by way of cleaning in an acid bath than actually corroding.
If the metals were to dissolve in the acid, such large doses of metal chloride (at least, not with metals such as copper, nickel, tin, zinc, or whatever else might be there) would not do you much good; but I rather doubt it would dissolve.
According to Wikipedia, the original 2p coin was bronze (copper and tin), but since the rise in the price of metals, the actual amount of metal in the coin is worth 3p (more than the face value of the coin), so it is now copper plated steel.
Incidentally, back in the days of yore, upon this season of Christmas, it used to be the custom to put a 6d in the Christmas pudding for one of the diners to find; but it was not that uncommon that the first they realised they had got the 6d was when they swallowed it (ofcourse, in this day of health and safety obsession, no-one would presume to put a coin in a pudding).
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The original 6d coin was silver; it wouldn't do any harm if you swallowed it.
(In case anyone wonders, we do mean 6d rather than 6p- it's our old coinage, prior to decimalisation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimalisation#UK_and_Ireland
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The original 6d coin was silver; it wouldn't do any harm if you swallowed it.
(In case anyone wonders, we do mean 6d rather than 6p- it's our old coinage, prior to decimalisation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimalisation#UK_and_Ireland
The original was indeed, but not by the time I was born:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_sixpence_coin
The silver content followed the pattern of other silver coins. They were sterling silver until 1920, when they were reduced to 50 percent silver. The last 50-percent-silver sixpence was minted in 1946; they were changed to cupro-nickel from 1947 onwards.
As the supply of silver thruppeny bits (see threepence) slowly disappeared, sixpences replaced them as the coins that were put into Christmas puddings and children would hope to be the lucky one to find the sixpence, no doubt also encouraging children to eat their pudding.
They have also been seen as a lucky charm for brides. There is an old rhyme which goes "Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue, And a sixpence for her shoe."
I can't say I ever needed any encouragement to eat my Christmas pudding (still don't).
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maybe there's no money in the pudding... but every new year my mom makes this greek bread and washes and boils a quarter and wraps it in wax paper. the person who gets the quarter is supposed to have good luck for the year