SWORD SWALLOWING

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12730, 1 May 1939, Page 2

SWORD SWALLOWING

;HAS ITS PERILS MAN CUTS HIS THROAT . Sydney, April 21 Sword-swallowing, real or make-be-lieve, is always genuine ,in its risks. John Lilja, who died at the Royal Melbourne Hospital/this week, had swallowed two swords two feet long, while performing at a carnival at Mordialloc, and was trying to swallow a third when it cut his throat, A German performer, often seen in Sydney streets in years gone by, used to swallow watches (which he would. draw out again by their chains), knives and, swords. His last trick was to swallow a sword. He had done so, almost completely, when a bystander tapped the hilt. The point pierced the juggler’s intestine, causing his death later. Make-believe was equally fatal to a Brisbane dentist who, in August picked up a safety-razor blade and said to his son that, he would show him the sword-swallowing trick. As he had often done with an egg or with a coin, he pretended to gulp it down, but almost immediately lost control of it, and actually swallowed the blade. It was rusted and he died four days later. Path Down Throat The physiology of sword-swallow-ing seemed to be much the same as that of championship beer-drinking, said a Sydney research doctor. The performer’s aim was to allow the blade, or the column of liquor, to pass down to the stomach without, causing the “sphincter” muscles, in the gullet and at the entrance to the stomach, to contract violently and expel them. - , By holding his head back, the sword-swallower could make for the blade a straight path to the stomach, so that .the point would not touch the sensitive tissues at the back of the throat which, if stimulated, would give the vomiting “reflex” and make swallowing almost, impossible. “Pouring Beer”

Below these tissues the sensitivity of the oesophagus was mush less. It reacted as a large piece of food, but it would offer less resistance to a straight, nan-ow object such as a sword blade. Champion beer-drinkers, who might be capable of “swallowing” a gallon at a draught, were apparently able to relax voluntarily the sphincter muscle in the throat, and perhaps to some extent that at the lower end of the oesophagus, said the doctor. Thus, swallowing beer was almost unnecessary, and the beer was practically poured down to the stomach.