'Swallow': A curious look at the ingestion of foreign bodies

In “Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them,” award-winning author Mary Cappello sheds light on the curious practice of Dr. Chevalier Jackson, a pioneering laryngologist who specialized in the delicate, nonsurgical extraction of foreign bodies that were swallowed or inhaled. Decades later, the items Jackson and his colleagues managed to retrieve from the throats of their patients still have the power to astonish. How could anyone swallow these things?

An X-ray of the case of E.R.S., age 4, a pair of toy opera glasses stuck in the esophagus. Radiologist, Dr. Willis F. Manges (1876-1936). From the Collection of the Mutter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

The cabinet of drawers containing the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection of things swallowed or inhaled, in Philadelphia's Mutter Museum. From the collection of the Mutter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Photographer Rosamond Purcell's detail of some of the foreign bodies that have a particularly appealing allure -- including a "Perfect Attendance" pin, and another that reads "B-A-2-Way Looker says Care-Fu-Lee." © Rosamond Purcell, 2009.

The intrepid Dr. Jackson, surrounded by framed displays of "intestinal foreign bodies" (swallowed objects).

The doctor examines one of his finds. Chevalier Jackson Papers, 1890-1964, MS C 292, Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

Part of an action exhibit mounted at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute in 1938 that featured a breathing mannequin complete with inserted bronchoscope through which museum goers could view and grasp with forceps and inspirated nail. Top to bottom: distal light, bronchoscope, forceps, foreign bodies. The Historical and Interpretive Collection of the Franklin Institute, Inc., Philadelphia, Pa.

Chevalier Jackson chalk/pastel drawing of a collar button stuck in the esophagus. From the Collection of the Mutter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

The problem of the thumb tack as illustrated and explained in Chevalier Jackson's "New Mechanical Problems in the Bronchoscopic Extraction of Foreign Bodies from the Lungs and Esophagus," Transactions of the American Laryngological, Rhinological, and Otolaryngological Socity, volume 27, 1921. Courtesy of Thomas Jefferson University, Archives and Special Collections.

A chain of safety pins representative of the range of prototypes a person might swallow or inhale. Chevalier Jackson Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Behring Center, Smithsonian Institution.

A baby's face, bronchoscopically framed, nibbles on a piece of toast, surrounded by a sea of all the possible bits of the object world she might, if un-checked, swallow or inhale. The cover for an article by Chevaliaer Jackson that appeared in Hygeia (December 1923), reprinted 1937, in the Chevalier Jackson Papers, 1890-1964, MS C 292, Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

An excerpt from Chevalier Jackson Papers, 1890-1964, MS C 292, Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medecine Division, National Library of Medecine, Bethesda, Maryland.

An X-ray revealing case # 1071, which Jackson unsurprisingly described as his most difficult case.

Panels of foreign bodies containing case #1071 from the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection in the Mutter Museum. © Rosamund W. Purcell, 2009.

A display of multiple foreign bodies removed from the body of an infant, case #1173, drawer 133, of the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection. Collection of the Mutter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

An elaborate array of safety pins and other objects retrieved by Dr. Jackson. Chevalier Jackson Papers, 1890-1964, MS C 292, Mondern Manuscripts Collections, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

As a 9-month-old, little Joseph B. swallowed a selection of safety pins. This photograph was sent to Dr. Jackson as both a thank-you note and evidence of the pioneering laryngologist's abilities. Chevalier Jackson Papers, 1890-1964, MS C 292, Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

An X-ray of one of Dr. Jackson's patients. Radiographer, Dr. Willis F. Manges (1876-1936). From the Collection of the Mutter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

One of the most talked-about items at the Glore Psychiatic Museum, this horrifying assortment of needles, pins, nails, buttons and other foreign objects was removed from a single patient. The St. Joseph Museums, Inc./Glore Psychiatric Museum, St. Joseph, Missouri.

A selection of pins and needless extracted from the body of a "young hysterical female" by Thomas Dent Mutter sometime in the late 1840s, mounted on isinglass. Collection of the Mutter Musem, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

An array of scopes from Jackson's instrumentarium with accompanying distal lights. Collection of the Mutter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Dan Meyer, sword swallower par excellence and executive director of Sword Swallower's Association International, mid-act and in X-ray. Used by permission of Dan Meyer, Sword Swallowers Association International (SSAI).

Solving the mechanical problems associated with retrieval of collar buttons in the upper torso as it appears in Chevalier Jackson's "New Mechanical Problems in the Bronchoscopic Extraction of Foreign Bodies from the Lungs and Esophagus," Transactions of the American Laryngological, Rhinological, Otolaryngological Society 27 (1921). Courtesy of Thomas Jefferson University, Archives and Special Conditions.

Children treated for ingestion of lye in the medical ampitheater of one of Jackson's clinics. Chevalier Jackson Papers, 1890-1964, MS C 292. Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

Margaret Derryberry about the age she was when she accidentally inhaled a hatpin, which Jackson removed from her bronchus. Margaret went in search of her pin in the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection in 2007, having suffered the accident when she was an 8-year-old in 1931. For years, Margaret's mother kept a subsitute pin in the lining of her purse, which she periodically brought out to show people what her daughter had survived. Photo courtesy of Margaret Derryberry and her daughter, Peggy Derryberry Gould.