There are many cases on record in which injury of the stomach has been due to some mistake or accident in the juggling process of knife-swallowing or sword-swallowing. The records of injuries of this nature extend back many hundred years, and even in the earlier days the delicate operation of gastrotomy, sometimes with a successful issue, was performed upon persons who had swallowed knives. Gross mentions that in 1502 Florian Mathias of Bradenberg removed a knife nine inches long from the stomach of a man of thirty-six, followed by a successful recovery. Glandorp, from whom, possibly, Gross derived his information, relates this memorable case as being under the direction of Florianus Matthaesius of Bradenburg. The patient, a native of Prague, had swallowed a knife eight or nine inches long, which lay pointing at the superior portion of the stomach. After it had been lodged in this position for seven weeks and two days gastrotomy was performed, and the knife extracted; the patient recovered. In 1613 Crollius reports the case of a Bohemian peasant who had concealed a knife in his mouth, thinking no one would suspect he possessed the weapon; while he was excited it slipped into the stomach, from whence it subsequently penetrated through to the skin; the man recovered. There is another old case of a man at Prague who swallowed a knife which some few weeks afterward made its exit from an abdominal abscess. Gooch quotes the case of a man, belonging to the Court of Paris, who, nine months after swallowing a knife, voided it at the groin. In the sixteenth century Laurentius Joubert relates a similar case, the knife having remained in the body two years. De Diemerbroeck mentions the fact that a knife ten inches long was extracted by gastrotomy, and placed among the rarities in the anatomic chamber of the University at Leyden. The operation was done in 1635 at Koenigsberg, by Schwaben, who for his surgical prowess was appointed surgeon to the King of Poland. The patient lived eight years after the operation.
It is said that in 1691, while playing tricks with a knife 6 1/2inches long, a country lad of Saxony swallowed it, point first.
He came under the care of Weserern, physician to the Elector of Brandenburgh, who successfully extracted it, two years and seven months afterward, from the pit of the lad's stomach. The horn haft of the knife was considerably digested. In 1720 Hubner of Rastembourg operated on a woman who had swallowed an open knife.
After the incision it was found that the knife had almost pierced the stomach and had excited a slight suppuration. After the operation recovery was very prompt.
Bell of Davenport, Iowa, performed gastrotomy on a man, who, while attempting a feat of legerdemain, allowed a bar of lead, 101/8 inches long, 1 1/2 inches wide, and 9 1/2 ounces in weight, to slip into his stomach. The bar was removed and the patient recovered. Gussenbauer gives an account of a juggler who turned his head to bow an acknowledgment of applause while swallowing a sword; he thus brought his upper incisors against the sword, which broke off and slipped into his stomach. To relieve suffocation the sword was pushed further down. Gastrotomy was performed, and the piece of sword 11 inches long was extracted;as there was perforation of the stomach before the operation, the patient died of peritonitis.
An hour after ingestion, Bernays of St. Louis successfully removed a knife 9 1/2 inches long. By means of an army-bullet forceps the knife was extracted easily through an incision 5/8inch long in the walls of the stomach. Gross speaks of a man of thirty who was in the habit of giving exhibitions of sword-swallowing in public houses, and who injured his esophagus to such an extent as to cause abscess and death. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 1, 1896, there is an extensive list of gastrotomies performed for the removal of knives and other foreign bodies, from the seventeenth century to the present time.
The physiologic explanation of sword-swallowing is quite interesting. We know that when we introduce the finger, a spoon, brush, etc., into the throat of a patient, we cause extremely disagreeable symptoms. There is nausea, gagging, and considerable hindrance with the function of respiration. It therefore seems remarkable that there are people whose physiologic construction is such that, without apparent difficulty, they are enabled to swallow a sword many inches long. Many of the exhibitionists allow the visitors to touch the stomach and outline the point of the sabre through the skin. The sabre used is usually very blunt and of rounded edges, or if sharp, a guiding tube of thin metal is previously swallowed. The explanation of these exhibitions is as follows: The instrument enters the mouth and pharynx, then the esophagus, traverses the cardiac end of the stomach, and enters the latter as far as the antrum of the pylorus, the small culdesac of the stomach. In their normal state in the ***** these organs are not in a straight line, but are so placed by the passage of the sword. In the first place the head is thrown back, so that the mouth is in the direction of the esophagus, the curves of which disappear or become less as the sword proceeds;the angle that the esophagus makes with the stomach is obliterated, and finally the stomach is distended in the vertical diameter and its internal curve disappears, thus permitting the blade to traverse the greater diameter of the stomach. According to Guyot-Daubes, these organs, in a straight line, extend a distance of from 55 to 62 cm., and consequently the performer is enabled to swallow an instrument of this length. The length is divided as follows:--Mouth and pharynx, . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 to 12 cm.
Esophagus, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 to 28 cm.
Distended stomach, . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 to 22 cm.
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55 to 62 cm.