Voluntary Vomiting, Part 2

Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
by George M. Gould, M.D., Walter L. Pyle, M.D.

(Page 25 of 42)

Bell of Davenport, Iowa, performed gastrotomy on a man, who, while attempting a feat of legerdemain, allowed a bar of lead, 10 1/8 inches long, 1 1/2 inches wide, and 9 1/2 ounces in weight, to slip into his stomach. The bar was removed and the patient recovered. Gussenbauer gives an account of a juggler who turned his head to bow an acknowledgment of applause while swallowing a sword; he thus brought his upper incisors against the sword, which broke off and slipped into his stomach. To relieve suffocation the sword was pushed further down. Gastrotomy was performed, and the piece of sword 11 inches long was extracted; as there was perforation of the stomach before the operation, the patient died of peritonitis.

An hour after ingestion, Bernays of St. Louis successfully removed a knife 9 1/2 inches long. By means of an army-bullet forceps the knife was extracted easily through an incision 5/8 inch long in the walls of the stomach. Gross speaks of a man of thirty who was in the habit of giving exhibitions of sword-swallowing in public houses, and who injured his esophagus to such an extent as to cause abscess and death. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 1, 1896, there is an extensive list of gastrotomies performed for the removal of knives and other foreign bodies, from the seventeenth century to the present time.

The physiologic explanation of sword-swallowing is quite interesting. We know that when we introduce the finger, a spoon, brush, etc., into the throat of a patient, we cause extremely disagreeable symptoms. There is nausea, gagging, and considerable hindrance with the function of respiration. It therefore seems remarkable that there are people whose physiologic construction is such that, without apparent difficulty, they are enabled to swallow a sword many inches long. Many of the exhibitionists allow the visitors to touch the stomach and outline the point of the sabre through the skin. The sabre used is usually very blunt and of rounded edges, or if sharp, a guiding tube of thin metal is previously swallowed. The explanation of these exhibitions is as follows: The instrument enters the mouth and pharynx, then the esophagus, traverses the cardiac end of the stomach, and enters the latter as far as the antrum of the pylorus, the small culdesac of the stomach. In their normal state in the adult these organs are not in a straight line, but are so placed by the passage of the sword. In the first place the head is thrown back, so that the mouth is in the direction of the esophagus, the curves of which disappear or become less as the sword proceeds; the angle that the esophagus makes with the stomach is obliterated, and finally the stomach is distended in the vertical diameter and its internal curve disappears, thus permitting the blade to traverse the greater diameter of the stomach. According to Guyot-Daubes, these organs, in a straight line, extend a distance of from 55 to 62 cm., and consequently the performer is enabled to swallow an instrument of this length.

These acrobats with the sword have rendered important service to medicine. It was through the good offices of a sword-swallower that the Scotch physician, Stevens, was enabled to make his experiments on digestion. He caused this assistant to swallow small metallic tubes pierced with holes. They were filled, according to Reaumur's method, with pieces of meat. After a certain length of time he would have the acrobat disgorge the tubes, and in this way he observed to what degree the process of digestion had taken place. It was also probably the sword-swallower who showed the physicians to what extent the pharynx could be habituated to contact, and from this resulted the invention of the tube of Faucher, the esophageal sound, ravage of the stomach, and illumination of this organ by electric light. Some of these individuals also have the faculty of swallowing several pebbles, as large even as hen's eggs, and of disgorging them one by one by simple contractions of the stomach. From time to time individuals are seen who possess the power of swallowing pebbles, knives, bits of broken glass, etc., and, in fact, there have been recent tricky exhibitionists who claimed to be able to swallow poisons, in large quantities, with impunity. Henrion, called "Casaandra," a celebrated example of this class, was born at Metz in 1761. Early in life he taught himself to swallow pebbles, sometimes whole and sometimes after breaking them with his teeth. He passed himself off as an American savage; he swallowed as many as 30 or 40 large pebbles a day, demonstrating the fact by percussion on the epigastric region. With the aid of salts he would pass the pebbles and make them do duty the next day. He would also swallow live mice and crabs with their claws cut. It was said that when the mice were introduced into his mouth, they threw themselves into the pharynx where they were immediately suffocated and then swallowed. The next morning they would be passed by the rectum flayed and covered with a mucous substance. Henrion continued his calling until 1820, when, for a moderate sum, he was induced to swallow some nails and a plated iron spoon 5 1/2 inches long and one inch in breadth. He died seven days later.

According to Bonet, there was a man by the name of Pichard who swallowed a razor and two knives in the presence of King Charles II of England, the King himself placing the articles into the man's mouth. In 1810 Babbington and Curry are accredited with citing the history of an American sailor in Guy's Hospital, London, who frequently swallowed penknives for the amusement of his audiences. At first he swallowed four, and three days later passed them by the anus; on another occasion he swallowed 14 of different sizes with the same result. Finally he attempted to gorge himself with 17 penknives, but this performance was followed by horrible pains and alarming abdominal symptoms. His excrement was black from iron. After death the cadaver was opened and 14 corroded knives were found in the stomach, some of the handles being partly digested; two were found in the pelvis and one in the abdominal cavity. Pare recalls the instance of a shepherd who suffered distressing symptoms after gulping a knife six inches long. Afterward the knife was abstracted from his groin. Fabricius Hildanus cites a somewhat similar case.

Early in the century there was a man known as the "Yankee knife-swallower," whose name was John Cummings, an American sailor, who had performed his feats in nearly all the ports of the world. One of his chief performances was swallowing a billiard ball. Poland mentions a man (possibly Cummings) who, in 1807, was admitted to Guy's Hospital with dyspeptic symptoms which he attributed to knife-swallowing. His story was discredited at first; but after his death, in March, 1809, there were 30 or 40 fragments of knives found in his stomach. One of the back-springs on a knife had transfixed the colon and rectum. In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 1825 there is an account of a juggler who swallowed a knife which remained in his stomach and caused such intense symptoms that gastrotomy was advised; the patient, however, refused operation.

Drake reports a curious instance of polyphagia. The person described was a man of twenty-seven who pursued the vocation of a "sword-swallower." He had swallowed a gold watch and chain with a seal and key attached; at another time he swallowed 34 bullets and voided them by the anus. 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.