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 acc