Is a kick in the testicles equal to "9000 del of pain" which is equivalent to giving birth to 160 kids or 3,200 bones getting crushed at the same time? No, that's not true: There is no such unit of measurement as a "del." A unit with a similar name briefly used in the middle of last century (the "dol") only had a scale that went from 1 to 10.
The claim appeared as a post (archived here) where it was published on Facebook on May 2, 2023. It opened:
A Kick in the nut is above 9000 del of pain which is equivalent to giving birth to 160 kids or 3200 bones getting crushed at the same time.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon May 15 20:49:10 2023 UTC)
While being kicked in the testicles, giving birth and having bones crushed may all be painful, there is no unit of measurement called the "del." The "dol" was briefly used around 1950 by a trio of researchers (James D. Hardy, Harold G. Wolff and Helen Goodell ) to measure pain on a scale of 1 to 10, as Lead Stories previously reported.
A 1948 paper titled, STUDIES ON PAIN: MEASUREMENTS OF PAIN INTENSITY IN CHILDBIRTH, attempted to evaluate the pain of women during labor and explained what a "dol" measurement was on Page 2:
"Dol" is the term used to denote the unit of painfulness, and has a value of approximately one-tenth the intensity of the maximal pain.
In addition to referring to a pain measurement that does not exist, the Facebook post cited no medical evidence to substantiate its claim of relative pain intensities.
