There is often such a kidnapping scene in TV series: putting a rag in the hostage's mouth can make people feel helpless immediately. Every time I see these, I feel incredible. It's just a rag Can't you spit it out? Isn't this story a little too false?

Although film and television programs are often dramatic and fictional, we know that in reality, gagging with cloth is one of the common practices, and similar situations have occurred in many cases. These people don't seem to get rid of the cloth. Is it really so hard to gag and spit it out?

Although there are many stories about cloth gagging, there are various materials, such as towels, gloves and socks. However, in a nutshell, these are all cloth, so we divide the relationship between cloth and tongue into two categories, as shown in the following figure (ignoring the method)

1. The tongue is pressed under the cloth. 2. The tongue is pushed behind the cloth.

In fact, there is only one possibility under normal circumstances, that is, the tongue is pressed under the cloth.

Why? Because in the second case, your tongue may be torn.

An important structure of the tongue is the lingual frenulum, commonly known as lingual tendon. This thing plays an important role in ensuring the pronunciation and swallowing of the tongue, but it also has a problem, which determines that our tongue can't go up indefinitely.

it wont hurt you to try it When the tongue stands up, if you roll it hard, you will feel the pain of stretching, which is the tongue pulling belt. If you keep pulling, the result is that the lingual frenulum breaks and then bleeds.

So, if a gangster puts a rag on you, don't think about sticking out your tongue. In that case, you may be directly injured and bleed, resulting in self-mutilation.

So the result is back to 1, that is, the tongue is pressed under the rag. In this case, you can't count on it. Spit it out. Because at this time, your tongue will be firmly crushed to death.

What's more troublesome is that the swelling problem of fabrics after meeting water is probably called swelling ability in the professional field, which means that fabrics swell after absorbing water.

Because saliva is secreted by the mouth, the rag will get wet. Compared with dry cloth, wet cloth will be squeezed more tightly, and then the mouth will be blocked more tightly, and there will be no room for tongue movement.

In addition, the friction of fabric increases after water absorption, and after cotton fiber and hemp fiber absorb water, amorphous region in polymer fiber absorbs water, thus forming more hydrogen bonds, increasing the strength of fiber, and also increasing the friction between fibers and skin friction. This is also the main reason why marathon runners don't choose cotton sportswear.

Of course, some people have a magical skill, which is vomiting. Can I vomit and let the vomit squeeze out of the rag?

Give up this idea, the kinetic energy of anti-vomiting can't push the rag at all, and because of anti-vomiting, if you accidentally block the respiratory tract, it may be life-threatening.

So there is no exaggeration in the TV series. If you plug it with a rag, you may not spit it out.