Egg Cup, Nails, Wristlet Watch And Trumpet Swallowed By Humans

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 35, 6 April 1948, Page 6

Egg Cup, Nails, Wristlet Watch And Trumpet Swallowed By Humans

Dr. Irwin Moore,.the larynologist, while demonstrating achievements of lung surgery to medical men, showed them a collection of specimens gathered from all parts of Britain. They included a wristlet watch and a small toy trumpet swallowed by a boy, 20 marbles swallowed by another youngster, and a large egg-cup which a man had “accidentally” swallowed at breakfast time.

The scientist Brunei once swallowed a half-sovereign while playing with children. After doctors had failed to extract it with specially-designed forceps, Brunei had himself whiried round on a centrifugal table built to his own design. The spinning caused convulsive coughing and up came the" coin. A newspaper seller, swallowed a half-sovereign, and every time he got hard up he would turn up at a hospital in the hope that some way would be found of removing it. Eventually, -it was extracted at Middlesex Hospital, but ten days afterwards the man died from tuberculosis of the lung, probably caused by the irritation set up by the coin over a long period .

A Capetown surgeon recently removed 244 fin. and lin. nails from the stomach of a young carpenter, who is now convalescing. The man told the surgeon that during a fit of depression he swallowed a handful of nails and developed the habit. Indigestion followed. X-rays showed the presence of the nails and it was decided to operate. In the pathological museum of a military hospital at Aldershot visitors* are sometimes shown a heap of scrap metal, including 87 horseshoe nails, two pieces of wire, two safety pins, a pen nib and a trouser button.

They weigh 21bs and'' were removed from the stomachs of patients.