Should you be saying things like that when we've only just met?
Get your mind out of the gutter.

OK, OK. Can you start by explaining what the vagus nerve actually is?
It's the 10th cranial nerve, whose motor fibres are distributed to the muscles of the larynx and pharynx and to autonomic ganglia to function in the regulation of motor and secretory activities of the abdominal and thoracic viscera. Its somatic sensory fibres go to the skin of the external auditory meatus and the meninges.

And for those of us without access to Neuroscience for Dummies?
It controls your digestion, abdominal and chest muscles, hearing and brain.

I see. And the stimulator part?
That's a device that delivers electrical impulses to the vagus nerve by cunning use of a subcutaneous battery, wire and electrodes.

Are there no lengths to which people won't go for kicks these days? I despair of humanity.
Chin up, this is actually a good-news story. Louisiana surgeons have implanted the VNS in the chest of Shane Shafer and cured him of a two-year bout of hiccups.

Eh? How does that happen?
As the old song almost says, the vagus nerve is connected to the diaphragm, which is what goes bonkers when you have hiccups. Regulate the one, and the other follows suit.

Mr Shafer must be delighted.
Considering that he could previously only stop his involuntary spasms for half an hour at a time, by vomiting copiously, I imagine he is.

Sounds great. Where can I find out more?
At Vagus-nerve-stimulator.com.

So could this be the end of the hiccup as we know it?
It's a bit early to tell how we will stop our hiccups in future, but it seems fair to say that extensive medical surgery is unlikely to supplant drinking a glass of water in the nation's affections just yet.

Not to be confused with:
The olfactory, optic, ocular motor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, vestibulocochlear, glosspharyngeal, accessory or hypoglossal cranial nerves. Especially if you are operating at the time.