SUBSTANCES IN THE THEOAT.

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SUBSTANCES STOPPED BETWEEN THEMOUTH AND STOMACH.

Though accidents of this kind are very common and ex-tremely dangerous, yet they are generally the effect of care-lessness. Children should he taught to chew their food well,and to put nothing into their mouths which it would be dan-gerous for them to swallow. But children are not the onlypersons guilty of this piece of imprudence. I know manyadults who put pins, nails, and other sharp-pointed substancesin their mouths upon every occasion, and some who evensleep with the former there all night. This conduct is ex-ceedingly incautious, as a fit of coughing, or twenty otheraccidents, may force over the substance before the person beaware.

- When any substance is detained in the gullet, there are twoways of removing it, viz., either by extracting it or pushing itdown. The safest and most certain way is always to extractor draw it out, but this is not always the easiest ; it maytherefore be more eligible sometimes to thrust it down, espe-cially when the obstructing body is of such a nature that thereis no danger from its reception into the stomach. The sub-stances which may be pushed down without danger are allcommon nourishing ones, as bread, flesh, fruits, and the like.All indigestible bodies, as cork, wood, bones, pieces of metal,and such like, ought, if possible, (o be extracted, especially ifthese bodies be sharp-pointed, as pins, needles, fish-bones, bitsof glass, &c.

When such substances have not passed in too deep, weshould endeavor to extract them with our fingers, whichmethod often succeeds. When they are lowe/, we shouldmake use of nippers, or a small pair of forceps, such as sur-geons use. But this attempt to extract rarely succeeds if thesubstance be of a flexible nature and has descended far intothe gullet.

If-the fingers and nippers fail, or cannot be duly applied,crotchets, a kind of hooks, must.be employed. These may bemade at once, by bending a piece of pretty strong iron wire atone end. It must be introduced in the flat way ; and for thebetter conducting it there should likewise be a curve or bend-ing at the end it is held by, to serve as a kind of handle toit, which has this further use, that it may be secured by astring tied to it, a circumstance not to be omitted in any36*