Lennox Browne reports the history of a woman who was supposed to
have either laryngeal carcinoma or phthisis, but in whom he
found, impacted in the larynx, a plate with artificial teeth
attached, which had remained in this position twenty-two months
unrecognized and unknown. The patient, when questioned,
remembered having been awakened in the night by a violent attack
of vomiting, and finding her teeth were missing assumed they were
thrown away with the ejections. From that time on she had
suffered pain and distress in breathing and swallowing, and
became the subject. of progressive emaciation. After the removal
of the impacted plate and teeth she soon regained her health.
Paget speaks of a gentleman who for three months, unconsciously,
carried at the base of the tongue and epiglottis, very closely
fitted to all the surface on which it rested, a full set of lost
teeth and gold palate-plate. From the symptoms and history it was
suspected that he had swallowed his set of false teeth, but, in
order to prevent his worrying, he was never informed of this
suspicion, and he never once suspected the causes of his
symptoms.
Wrench mentions a case illustrative of the extent to which
imagination may produce symptoms simulating those ordinarily
caused by the swallowing of false teeth.
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