Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1891 — KILLED BY A CORK. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

KILLED BY A CORK.

The Singular Accident Coat a Minister His Life. The Bev. Geo. W. Bothwell, of Brooklyn, N. Y., died from the effects of having accidentally inhaled a cork. The case became quickly celebrated, not because such accidents are rarities, but because of the prominent position of the olergyman and the efforts made by surgeons to save him. About to pour medicine from a bottle, he held the cork between his teeth, and being at the same time made to laugh by the antics of his child, he took a quick, deep breath, and the oork went with the draught of air into the breathing tubes, and soon lodged as cloeely is in a bottle in one of the bronchial tubes leading to the middle portion of the left lung. Several attempts were

made by competent surgeons to dislodge the cork, and a special corkscrew instrument was devised for the purpose, but the cork was too firmly imbedded in the bronchial mucous membrane, and post-mortem showed that this membrane had become swollen all about the cork, so that its removal would have been impossible except very soon after its entrance. It position had been accurately located. Not being removed, the cork caused local inflammation, formation of pus, bloodpoisoning, heart failure and death, after about fifteen days of patient and courageous suffering. Foreign bodies, such as false teeth, aonCs, and coins, have in some cases remained hidden and quiet in the lungs for several years, and been suddenly and unexpectedly coughed up again. So it is often a serious question what to do —to operate or let alone. A study of 636 cases shows death in 41 per cent.when no operation was performed, and in 23 per cent, after operation. In this late case the result of non-inter-ference might have been better, but probably would not have been because the cork so perfectly plugged a tube, and thus became a very offensive for--eign body. A bullet shot into the soft lung tissue would be less aggravating than a.soft cork thus situated. The location of tho cork as found at the postmortem examination is clearly shown in the accompanying illustration, which shows the larynx, or voice box, the straight bronchial tube, and its bifur- » cations and larger branches. The amount of breathing surface cut off by this plug could have been spared, but the danger of doing nothing to remove ;t lay in the inflammatory action it could excite. It was a case in which the choice of either policy would be likely to make the surgeon wish he had done the other thing instead. The victim of this unfortunate accident seems to have been needlessly killed in.the midst of a life of health and activity. His experience affords but one lesson—that is. the wisdom of not making the mouth the handy receptacle for articles which, if inhaled, may as surely kill as a bullet shot into the lungs; but such fatal accidents are so uncommon and the mouth is so generally made useful in this way that it is doubtful if the sad fate of Mr. B. will be of any use as a warning—for more than a week and a day, at all events. When articles are inhaled which do not fit the lung tubes so well as a cork, as collar buttons or tacks, surgeons are often able by expert operations to get them out, but such operations are painful and tedious to both patient and surgeon, and one of the jest things you cau do with a button, a pin or a cork, is not to put it in your mouth.— Health Monthly.