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.

Foreign Bodies in the Alimentary Canal.--In the discussion of the
foreign bodies that have been taken into the stomach and intestinal
tract possibly the most interesting cases, although the least
authentic, are those relating to living animals, such as fish, insects,
or reptiles. It is particularly among the older writers that we find
accounts of this nature. In the Ephemerides we read of a man who
vomited a serpent that had crept into his mouth, and of another person
who ejected a beetle that had gained entrance in a similar manner. From
the same authority we find instances of the vomiting of live fish,
mice, toads, and also of the passage by the anus of live snails and
snakes. Frogs vomited are mentioned by Bartholinus, Dolaeus,
Hellwigius, Lentilus, Salmuth, and others. Vege mentions a man who
swallowed a young chicken whole. Paullini speaks of a person who, after
great pain, vomited a mouse which he had swallowed. Borellus,
Bartholinus, Thoner, and Viridet, are among the older authorities
mentioning persons who swallowed toads. Hippocrates speaks of asphyxia
from a serpent which had crawled into the mouth.

Borellus states that he knew a case of a person who vomited a
salamander. Plater reports the swallowing of eels and snails. Rhodius
mentions persons who have eaten scorpions and spiders with impunity.
Planchon writes of an instance in which a live spider was ejected from
the bowel; and Colini reports the passage of a live lizard which had
been swallowed two days before, and there is another similar case on
record. Marcellus Donatus records an instance in which a viper, which
had previously crawled into the mouth, had been passed by the anus.
There are also recorded instances in French literature in which persons
affected with pediculosis, have, durin