wed two artificial teeth. On the
following day there was pain in the epigastrium, and by the fourth day
the pain extended to the vertebrae, with vomiting, delirium, and death
on the fifth day. At the autopsy it was found that a foreign body,
seven cm. long had perforated the pericardium, causing a suppurative
pericarditis. Dagron reports a unique instance of death by purulent
infection arising from perforation of the esophagus by a pin. The
patient was a man of forty-two, and, some six weeks before he presented
himself for treatment, before swallowing had experienced a severe pain
low down in the neck. Five days before admission he had had a severe
chill, followed by sweating and delirium. He died of a supraclavicular
abscess on the fifth day; a black steel pin was found against the
esophagus and trachea.

In connection with foreign bodies in the esophagus, it might be
interesting to remark that Ashhurst has collected 129 cases of
esophagotomy for the removal of foreign bodies, resulting in 95
recoveries and 34 deaths. Gaudolphe collected 142 cases with 110
recoveries.

Injuries of the neck are usually inflicted with suicidal intent or in
battle. Cornelius Nepos says that while fighting against the
Lacedemonians, Epaminondas was sensible of having received a mortal
wound, and apprehending that the lance was stopping a wound in an
important vessel, remarked that he would die when it was withdrawn.
When he was told that the Boeotians had conquered, exclaiming "I die
unconquered," he drew out the lance and perished. Petrus de Largenta
speaks of a man with an arrow in one of his carotids, who was but
slightly affected before its extraction, but who died immediately after
the removal of the arrow. Among the remarkable recoveries from injuries
of the neck is that mentioned by Boerhaave, of a young man who lived
nine or ten days after receiving a sword-thrust through the neck
between the 4th and 5th vertebrae, dividing the vertebral artery.
Benedictus, Bonacursius, and Monroe, all mention recovery after cases
of cut-throat in which the esophagus as well as the trachea was
wounded, and food protruded from the external cut. Warren relates the
history of a case in which the vertebral artery was wounded by the
discharge of a pistol loaded with pebbles. The hemorrhage was checked
by compression and packing, and after the discharge of a pebble and a
piece of bone from the wound, the man was seen a month afterward in
perfect heal