Saturday, March 3, 2018

Tuffi and polydipsia

Wuppertal, famed for the Pina Bausch dance company, is also home of the first suspended rail that was built and opened in 1901. In 1949 the town was looking to promote its ridership and hired the Althoff Circus to do a publicity stunt. A small female elephant was hoisted in to the train to show how safe this train was. The elephant, whose original name was Tarto, was thought to have panicked and smashed its way out of the cabin dropping 12 meters into the Wupper river. Tarto's name was changed to Tuffi, Italian for "dive" after this incident and the suspended rail became famous after this infamous incident.
When Tuffi died an autopsy was done which revealed the elephant suffered from polydipsia, a rare disease that shuts off the brain's understanding when one's thirst is quenched. Indeed, this elephant drank enormous quantities of water and when it was above the Wupper on that ill-fated summery day of the 21st of July 1950, it was not frightened by the wobbly steel structure that made screeching sounds as the elephant was forced in, but it, being just above the river, saw a flow of irresistible water that provoked her to spring for it.


No comments: