Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [363]
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. This man awoke one morning with his nose and throat full of blood, and noticed that his false teeth, which he seldom removed at night, were missing. He rapidly developed great pain and tumor in the larynx, together with difficulty in deglutition and speech. After a fruitless search, with instrumental and laryngoscopic aid, the missing teeth were found--in a chest of drawers; the symptoms immediately subsided when the mental illusion was relieved.
There is a curious case of a man drowned near Portsmouth. After the recovery of his body it was seen that his false teeth were impacted at the anterior opening of the glottis, and it was presumed that the shock caused by the plunge into the cold water had induced a violent and deep inspiration which carried the teeth to the place of impaction.
Perrin reports a case of an old man of eighty-two who lost his life from the impaction of a small piece of meat in the trachea and glottis. In the Musee Valde-Grace is a prepared specimen of this case showing the foreign body in situ. In the same museum Perrin has also deposited a preparation from the body of a man of sixty-two, who died from the entrance of a morsel of beef into the respiratory passages. At the postmortem a mobile mass of food about the size of a hazel-nut was found at the base of the larynx at the glossoepiglottic fossa. About the 5th ring of the trachea the caliber of this organ was obstructed by a cylindric alimentary bolus about six inches long, extending almost to the bronchial division. Ashhurst shows a fibrinous cast, similar to that found in croup, caused by a foreign body removed by Wharton, together with a shawl-pin, from a patient at the Children's Hospital seven hours after the performance of tracheotomy. Search for the foreign body at the time of the operation was prevented by profuse hemorrhage.
The ordinary instances of foreign bodies in the larynx and trachea are so common that they will not be mentioned here. Their variety is innumerable and it is quite possible for more than two to be in the same location simultaneously. In his treatise on this subject Gross says that he has seen two, three, and even four substances simultaneously or successively penetrate the same location. Berard presented a stick of wood extracted from the vocal cords of a child of ten, and a few other similar instances are recorded.
The Medical Press and Circular finds in an Indian contemporary some curious instances of misapplied ingenuity on the part of certain habitual criminals in that country. The discovery on a prisoner of a heavy leaden bullet about 3/4 inch in diameter led to an inquiry as to the object to which it was applied. It was ascertained that it served to aid in the formation of a pouch-like recess at the base of the epiglottis. The ball is allowed to slide down to the desired position, and it is retained there for about half an hour at a time. This operation is repeated many times daily until a pouch the desired size results, in which criminals contrive to secrete jewels, money, etc., in such a way as to defy the most careful search, and without interfering in any way with speech or respiration. Upward of 20 prisoners at Calcutta were found to be provided with this pouch-formation. The resources of the professional malingerer are exceedingly varied, and testify to no small amount of cunning. The taking of internal irritants is very common, but would-be in-patients very frequently overshoot the mark and render recovery impossible. Castor-oil seeds, croton beans, and sundry other agents are employed with this object
Wrench mentions a case illustrative of the extent to which imagination may produce symptoms simulating those ordinarily caused by the swallowing of false teeth. This man awoke one morning with his nose and throat full of blood, and noticed that his false teeth, which he seldom removed at night, were missing. He rapidly developed great pain and tumor in the larynx, together with difficulty in deglutition and speech. After a fruitless search, with instrumental and laryngoscopic aid, the missing teeth were found--in a chest of drawers; the symptoms immediately subsided when the mental illusion was relieved.
There is a curious case of a man drowned near Portsmouth. After the recovery of his body it was seen that his false teeth were impacted at the anterior opening of the glottis, and it was presumed that the shock caused by the plunge into the cold water had induced a violent and deep inspiration which carried the teeth to the place of impaction.
Perrin reports a case of an old man of eighty-two who lost his life from the impaction of a small piece of meat in the trachea and glottis. In the Musee Valde-Grace is a prepared specimen of this case showing the foreign body in situ. In the same museum Perrin has also deposited a preparation from the body of a man of sixty-two, who died from the entrance of a morsel of beef into the respiratory passages. At the postmortem a mobile mass of food about the size of a hazel-nut was found at the base of the larynx at the glossoepiglottic fossa. About the 5th ring of the trachea the caliber of this organ was obstructed by a cylindric alimentary bolus about six inches long, extending almost to the bronchial division. Ashhurst shows a fibrinous cast, similar to that found in croup, caused by a foreign body removed by Wharton, together with a shawl-pin, from a patient at the Children's Hospital seven hours after the performance of tracheotomy. Search for the foreign body at the time of the operation was prevented by profuse hemorrhage.
The ordinary instances of foreign bodies in the larynx and trachea are so common that they will not be mentioned here. Their variety is innumerable and it is quite possible for more than two to be in the same location simultaneously. In his treatise on this subject Gross says that he has seen two, three, and even four substances simultaneously or successively penetrate the same location. Berard presented a stick of wood extracted from the vocal cords of a child of ten, and a few other similar instances are recorded.
The Medical Press and Circular finds in an Indian contemporary some curious instances of misapplied ingenuity on the part of certain habitual criminals in that country. The discovery on a prisoner of a heavy leaden bullet about 3/4 inch in diameter led to an inquiry as to the object to which it was applied. It was ascertained that it served to aid in the formation of a pouch-like recess at the base of the epiglottis. The ball is allowed to slide down to the desired position, and it is retained there for about half an hour at a time. This operation is repeated many times daily until a pouch the desired size results, in which criminals contrive to secrete jewels, money, etc., in such a way as to defy the most careful search, and without interfering in any way with speech or respiration. Upward of 20 prisoners at Calcutta were found to be provided with this pouch-formation. The resources of the professional malingerer are exceedingly varied, and testify to no small amount of cunning. The taking of internal irritants is very common, but would-be in-patients very frequently overshoot the mark and render recovery impossible. Castor-oil seeds, croton beans, and sundry other agents are employed with this object