redited 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