Statistically observing the cases of foreign bodies treated in the author's clinic in the period from 1936 through 1955, the author noticed that the kinds of foreign bodies were closely related with the food. In 1945 many soya-beans were found in the ear, the nose and the bronchus, and during World War II the number of coins decreased as foreign bodies in the esophagus.
Owing to the development of chemotherapy after World War II, esophageal abscess and its mortality have decreased.(Esophageal abscess decreased to 1/5 and mortality also to 1/5.)
A few interesting cases of foreign bodies in the bronchus are appended.
1. 20-year-old man. After tracheotomy the patient noticed a feeling of foreign body in the larynx and it lasted for a long time. A piece of suturing thread was found in the subglottic space.
2. One-year-and-3-month-old boy. The boy swallowed a pin by accident. A doctor had tried the X-ray examination and said that it was in the stomach, but the author found it in the trachea.
3. 39-year-old man. The patient swallowed an artificial tooth by accident. Although it was not easy to extract it for it had the projection, the author succeeded in removing it.
4. 12-year-old boy. As the boy was playing with a blowpipe, he inhaled one of the needles and it stuck in the pharynx. Presently it moved into the right upper bronchus.
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