dent of a similar nature, in which, however, the chest was subjected to a still more severe trial in a contrary direction. John Toylor, a Prussian, “whilst guiding the pivot of the trysail mast into the main boom, the tackle gave way; the pivot passed obliquely through his body, apparently between the heart and the left lung.” Notwithstanding this spitting process the man got quite well, and has been several times to the museum with his shipmates to view the drawing, quite proud of his achievement; and, in order to further illustrate the case, he promises to dedicate his chest to the museum after his death!
If we traverse the pathological gallery we shall find some astounding examples of the tolerance with which the stomach will bear the presence of very awkward foreign bodies. This one, for example, is full of pins, bent double in the form of fish-hooks. When we see a poor dyspeptic patient attribute his misery to “that bit of plum cake he took over night,” we cannot help thinking of the secret this woman must have possessed to deliberately swallow crooked pins until she had accumulated a couple of lbs. in her stomach without any seeming inconvenience. Close at hand, in a bottle, we see a juggler’s “failure,” in the shape of a dagger swallowed not wisely “but too well.” It was fast disappearing under the effects of the gastric juice, but, unfortunately, the patient could not wait for the completion of the digestive process. Very near there is another bottle full of the remains of clasp knives. The patient’s stomach in this case had managed to dissolve all the handles, and nothing was left but the bare frameworks of iron and the blades. What would half the over-fed, under-worked class of valetudinarians give for such a splendid organ! If we descend to the floor of the museum once more, we shall find a few odd things to show the visitor. In this glass case, devoted to skin curiosities, we come suddenly upon a little bit of historical illustration. These little dry remnants of brown-looking leather take us back to the times of the Anglo-Saxons, and tell a tale of those lawless times. We read in romance of the daring sea-kings, but here is a plain and very ugly bit of prose, in the shape of specimens of skin from flayed Northmen, caught plundering our churches. Our ancestors had a trick of nailing the hides of those they caught thus amusing themselves, upon the church doors, “pour d’encourager les autres,” and the specimens we see have been taken from the church doors of Hedstock and Copford in Essex, and from the north door of Worcester. Seeing that these remnants of frail humanity must have been thus exposed for upwards of a thousand years, there seems to be some truth in the boast that there is “nothing like leather.” There is a very stout piece of dermis near those Danish fragments, which looks remarkably like a piece of india-rubber, but the catalogue informs us that it is “from the shoulder of a remarkably stout man, and was tanning from April to September;” a very obdurate piece of skin, doubtless, but we do not see the scientific importance of the explanation. In the frame devoted to the concretions found in the human organs are some remarkable examples of human hair, matted and felted together so as to form a solid mass—in one instance pretty nearly the shape and size of that organ itself. Some girls have an inveterate habit of swallowing hairs, and in this instance the patient must have almost denuded her head. Cows are liable to these concretions, and there are some remarkable instances of them here, but they are collected accidentally in the act of licking. We particularly desire to draw the attention of Scotchmen to an ugly lump, which the label informs us is composed of oat-hairs and husks, found in the stomach of a man in the habit of taking oatmeal porridge!
Of surgical injuries these glass cases contain many extraordinary examples: there are some skulls penetrated at Inkermann with Minié balls, showing the terrible nature of the wounds inflicted by modern projectiles; and skulls, again, which prove what gashes may be made in solid bone by sabre cuts, without doing any injury to the brain; possibly, as these skulls are Chinese, their extra thickness may have been a protection.
Glancing through the glass-cases devoted to the teeth of the various animals,
Teeth of rat and beaver grown into rings through want of proper attrition.
