A beauty treatment ended in the emergency room for a Chinese man who bathed in live eels after one of the slippery creatures swam inside his penis.

Vain Zhang Nan, from Hubei province, central China, had heard that bathing with young eels would make him look younger because they would chew off dead skin.

But the 56-year-old got more than he bargained for when he climbed into the bath with the animals.

"I felt a severe pain and realised a small eel had gone into the end of my penis," Mr Zhang said.

"I tried to hold it and take it out, but the eel was too slippery to be held and disappeared."

Mr Zhang was taken to hospital and underwent a three hour operation to remove the eel, which measured about 1.2cm wide and 15cm long, and was dead when doctors found it inside his bladder.

Doctor Jin Wang said the eel's slimy body had worked as a lubricant.

"The diameter of the urethra in a man's genitals is just a little narrower [than the eel], but because eels are quite slippery, its body worked as a lubricant so it got into the penis smoothly," he said

Tags Health news