At Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in August,
1819, in one day and night he swallowed 19 pocket-knives and 41
copper cents. This man had commenced when a lad of fifteen by
swallowing marbles, and soon afterward a small penknife. After
his death his esophagus was found normal, but his stomach was so
distended as to reach almost to the spine of the ilium, and
knives were found in the stomach weighing one pound or more. In
his exhibitions he allowed his spectators to hear the click of
the knives and feel them as low down as the anterior superior
spine of the ilium.
The present chief of the dangerous "profession" of
sword-swallowing is Chevalier Cliquot, a French Canadian by
birth, whose major trick is to swallow a real bayonet sword,
weighted with a cross-bar and two 18-pound dumbbells. He can
swallow without difficulty a 22-inch cavalry sword; formerly, in
New York, he gave exhibitions of swallowing fourteen 19-inch
bayonet swords at once. A negro, by the name of Jones, exhibiting
not long since in Philadelphia, gave hourly exhibitions of his
ability to swallow with impunity pieces of broken glass and
china.
Foreign Bodies in the Alimentary Canal.--In the discussion of the
foreign bodies that have been taken into the stomach and
intestinal tract possibly the most interesting cases, although
the least authentic, are those relating to living animals, such
as fish, insects, or reptiles.
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