[Perineal pain in Tintin adventures]

To analyze the determinants and severity of perineal pain in the adventures of Tintin and Snowy.

All 23 adventures of Tintin and Snowy (Hergé, Moulinsart Ed.) were reviewed in order to determine the presence, causes and severity of perineal pain (PP) observed in the various heroes of this comic book. Several parameters were studied: the cause which could be either accidental or voluntary; the type of patient (good guys-bad guys); the hero concerned (Tintin, Captain Haddock, Thompson and Thomson, Snowy, Professor Calculus …); the duration of the pain (by the number of boxes where the subject was represented suffering from such pains); finally, the severity of these pains, by the number of stars or signs designating the region and stereotyping the importance of the pain. The Student and Chi² tests were used to analyze these different qualitative and quantitative variables.

Five hundred and one traumas were found in the adventures of Tintin and Snowy, including 47 PP, 9.4% of cases compared to 299 head traumas (60% of cases). Six albums out of the 23 did not report any PP. PPs are usually traumatic either by a fall (68%) or by direct trauma (kick to the back 6%, spanking 4%) much more exceptionally by a bite (2 cases), a burn (2 cases), needles or arrows inserted in the bottom (5 cases) and a bullet wound (1 case). Tintin is the most concerned (19%) with Captain Haddock (23%), followed by Snowy (15%). The bad guys and the good guys don't share equally the perineal pain since the good guys are forgivably more exposed (79% vs. 21%). There is no correlation between head trauma and PP (r²=0.117). The severity index for PP is 5.21 with a mean duration of 3.01 vs. 6.88 for severity and 3.2 for duration for head trauma, a highly significant difference in the Student test (P=0.00259). The total number of traumas per album progressively decreases over the albums (r²=0.3111) with, for example, 38 for the first album (Tintin and the Soviets) and 4 for the last one (Tintin and the Picaros). This decrease in trauma is clearer for cephalic trauma (r²=0.1436) than for PP (r²=0.2189).

The frequency of traumatic PP in Tintin's adventures is important and is second only to head injuries. This frequency of PP traumas is undoubtedly linked to the hectic and adventurous life of Tintin and his acolytes exposed in all circumstances to all kinds of direct or indirect injuries. Future studies will have to specify the risk of after-effects and the psychological impact of PPs on the heroes concerned.

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