of the tracheotomy-tube fell into the right bronchus,
but was removed by an ingenious instrument extemporaneously devised
from silver wire. A few years ago in this country there was much public
excitement and newspaper discussion over the daily reports which came
from the bedside of a gentleman who had swallowed a cork, and which had
become lodged in a bronchus. Tracheotomy was performed and a special
corkscrew devised to extract it, but unfortunately the patient died of
slow asphyxiation and exhaustion. Herrick mentions the case of a boy of
fourteen months who swallowed a shawl-pin two inches long, which
remained in the lungs four years, during which time there was a
constant dry and spasmodic cough, and corresponding depression and
emaciation. When it was ultimately coughed up it appeared in one large
piece and several smaller ones, and was so corroded as to be very
brittle. After dislodgment of the pin there was subsidence of the cough
and rapid recovery.

Lapeyre mentions an elderly gentleman who received a sudden slap on the
back while smoking a cigarette, causing him to start and take a very
deep inspiration. The cigarette was drawn into the right bronchus,
where it remained for two months without causing symptoms or revealing
its presence. It then set up a circumscribed pneumonia and cardiac
dropsy which continued two months longer, at which time, during a
violent fit of coughing, the cigarette was expelled enveloped in a
waxy, mucus-like matter. Louis relates the case of a man who carried a
louis-d'or in his lung for six and a half years.

There is a case on record of a man who received a gunshot wound, the
ball entering behind the left clavicle and passing downward and across
to the right clavicle. Sometime afterward this patient expectorated two
pieces of bone and a piece of gum blanket in which he was enveloped at
the time of the injury. Carpenter describes a case of fatal pleuritis,
apparently due to the presence of four artificial teeth which had been
swallowed thirteen years before.

Cardiac Injuries.--For ages it has been the common opinion relative to
injuries of the heart that they are necessarily fatal and that, as a
rule, death immediately follows their reception. Notwithstanding this
current belief a careful examination of the literature of medicine
presents an astounding number of cases in which the heart has been
positively wounded, and the patients have lived days, months, and even
recovered;