On November 15, 1802, the celebrated Dr. Lettsom
spoke of an old lady who sat on a needle while riding in a
hackney coach; it passed from the injured leg to the other one,
whence it was extracted. Deckers tells of a gentleman who was
wounded in the right hypochondrium, the ball being taken thirty
years afterward from the knee. Borellus gives an account of a
thorn entering the digit and passing out of the body by the anus.
Strange as it may seem, a prick of a pin not entering a vital
center or organ has been the indirect cause of death. Augenius
writes of a tailor who died in consequence of a prick of a needle
between the nail and flesh of the end of the thumb. Amatus
Lusitanus mentions a similar instance in an old woman, although,
from the symptoms given, the direct cause was probably tetanus.
In modern times Cunninghame, Boring, and Hobart mention instances
in which death has followed the prick of a pin: in Boring's case
the death occurred on the fifth day.
Manufacture of Crippled Beggars.--Knowing the sympathy of the
world in general for a cripple, in some countries low in the
moral scale, voluntary mutilation is sometimes practiced by those
who prefer begging to toiling. In the same manner artificial
monstrosities have been manufactured solely for gain's sake.
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