A LIVING WONDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6667, 31 March 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

A LIVING WONDER.

Tiik hospitals of Italy are resolvrd not to be outdone, if they can help it, hy those of l\ir:a, and they ai e beginning to announce to the world tile living wondety of which they are the hapry posstssors. At Cremona, for instance, tlio object of interest is nut a sleeping (»:rl, or a fasting man, or a giaut with -O iiiclt feet wiio camiot walk, liut a man who has developed an attack of pleurisy by his peculiar liking for the diet which ostriches are supposed chielly to affect. Fr>m the age of twelve years this man of strange appetites has been feeding free'v, ■mil without any part cular ill effects, upon pebbles, iro:; nads, and knobs of glass. H's capacity for swallowing aud accommodating the,-e objects within iiiin was only dt velopeil by a considerable course of training, and it was not till he was abut fift.-en that the youth felt qualified to make public displays of his ar:. But by diligent practice he steadily improved. Hid most useful method was to take glass balls of a conveuient size, well smoothed and polished, so that there should be no unpleasant friction as they fassed down the thro.it arid other internal . passages. By degre. she became able to take fr..m 15 to 20 p-bbles a day, each weighing "ozs., and having a diameUr of 2-i inches. Nails could not he ho well accommodated ; and it was consider- d good practice to take a dozen or two of them measuring S inches in length, and the third of an inch in diameter at the head. 110 has, however, when in good for. ■«, and supplied with plenty of thick soup to wash them d>wn, been known to do 2j such n.iils at a sitting ; and these ( performances are said to have been attested to tI,H satisfaction of Dr. Cosoi, the chief of the Cremona Hospital, and other medical men. On the whole it is, perhaps, leys surprising that he should ujw b-, siilFering from ! pleurisy than that ha should not have been earlier attacked by a still more troublesome form of tnalaiy.