vomitorium

In which I learned 3 things that I'll pass along to you. (Lucky you.)

It feels like a flu virus. The aching neck, shoulders, and back. The too-sensitive hearing. It feels like a flu, and that means that there's nothing a doctor could do for me anyway but tell me to endure until it's run its cycle. Not that I have health insurance or money to see a doctor anyway. *shrug* So, I endure. Like at 1am when I emailed my boss to say that I wouldn't be at work on Monday. Like at 5am when I had a 101.2F temperature and was heaving the contents of my almost-empty stomach into the porcelain bowl. (Where longhair is a distinct disadvantage, I must point out.)

1) There's no such thing as a vomitorium for vomiting.

I really dislike the sensation of vomiting. It's hard to believe that the Romans encouraged it during their prandial revelries. Eat up, purge, eat some more. As The Straight Dope reports,

The last time you were doubled over the porcelain throne heaving your nachos, did you think: I want to permanently consecrate part of my home to this delicious experience? Well, neither did the Romans.

A vomitorium is literally a passageway in an amphitheater which can very quickly "spew out" a stream of people into the building. Again, The Straight Dope explains:

The vomitoria of the Colosseum in Rome were so well designed that it's said the immense venue, which seated at least 50,000, could fill in 15 minutes. (There were 80 entrances at ground level, 76 for ordinary spectators and 4 for the imperial family.) The vomitoria deposited mobs of people into their seats and afterward disgorged them with equal abruptness into the streets--whence, presumably, the name.

The hugely mistaken practice of linking vomitoria to vomiting may have appeared only about 1 century ago. According to Michael Quinion, a writer, there is a 1915 book that was an early reference to this (wrong) idea.

2) Feathers were used, but not down the throat.

Romans were, however, big fans of revelry. They did, apparently, use feathers to help induce vomiting so they could purge and then return to copious consumption of food and drink. According to Dennis Fitzgerald, a doctor who spoke in a National Public Radio story, the feather was not stuffed down a person's throat. They used it in their ear.

I have my doubts, though. First, he perpetuates the wrong idea about vomitoria used for vomiting. Second, I've never felt like heaving when I had a q-tip ("cotton swab") in my ear. But, I report it as I hear it. Someone with a university degree said it, so it must be true, right?

3) There's a vomitorium here in Minneapolis.

Wikipedia, source of all knowledge, has a short vomitoria article that states:

The voms, as they are called, allow actors to mount the stage from halls cut into the amphitheatre. The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota has two permanent voms, one at stage left and one at stage right, of its thrust stage.

The more you know....

Now I need to go lay down for a while, and hopefully not do any more heaving.