QUEER THINGS THAT CHILDREN SWALLOW.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17411, 23 March 1922, Page 9

QUEER THINGS THAT CHILDREN SWALLOW.

Those who have the care of ehildiwa know that the habit of putting nnsuitable objects in their mouths doe* not cease with' babyhood. Mr Williim James has pointed out that anyone who has ever seen a schoolboy hanging fro» a branch by his hands, nis cheek bulging with some treasure, will oe easily persuaded of th© truta of the Darwinian tneory. - .-. -y^ 1 remember a small pupil of was suttenrig from diphtneria. While waiting tor tho ambulance to come ana t&KQ him to hospital! he swallowed >a china rabbit, about Sin. long, measured irom the tips of the erect ears. >-. boy recovered, and the rabbit was placed in the hospital museum, where it probably still is, _ , Small boys and girls are very fond or throwing oojects into the air and catching them in their moutha. 6© it came about that a ten-year-old girl wallowed a piece of indiarubber about 4in. long, pointed at both. ends. _, , Inis proved a most difficult object.to recover. A' well-known physician wae summon- . ed home by an urgent message that:hw little boy of three or four had swallowed a tin soldier on horseback, carrying a lance. A very anxious tune followed, the father bei said reproachfully: "What a naughty u Vjr ™ «ive mummie and me all this worry. I ° "Why, daddy?" replied the boy in surprise. "That soldier wasn't one or hit best ones! - '' . "Children often put pina in . their mouths and swallow them unconfi<aou»ly. Sometimes the pins work-out of the svstem with little inconvenience, but one measuring l|in. in length caused tho death the other day of an 11-year-old boy at Tunbridge Wells., The most curious case of pin-swauow-ingisthat recorded of a 6-year-oSd girl who lived about a century agoat Nottiugham. Pin 3 were scarce in those day?, and the child was employed, to pick them up from the floor of; ike church of which her grandfather was The child used to swallow these. sometimes, till at last she became seriously ill and had to be removed to the infirmary. There it was found that she had become, in fact, a human, pincushion. It was many years before the hospital had extracted the last of the pins from her system after a series of operations of which details need not be given. However, the "human pin-oushion" survived, married, and became .the mother of nineteen children! Let ua * •' *■ ■* nofc.to put in London "Daily Mail."