Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1877 — A Screw in a Boy’s Lungs for Five Months. [ARTICLE]

A Screw in a Boy’s Lungs for Five Months.

Ijr the Smith’s Grove section there resides the family of Mr. W. J. Dickerson, a gentleman well and favorably known in the county. In the family there is a bright, manly little boy, nine years old, named James, who is quite a pet. Last August he and his mother were paring apples fOr drying purposes with an ordinary machine used for that purpose. A threeeighths inch screw dropped from the machine, and James, child-like, put the screw in his mouth, and accidentally sucked it down his windpipe. Violent coughing followed without ejecting the screw. On the Ist of September the little boy was taken to his bed, first with chills and fever. This was followed by inters mittent fever, which in turn was succeeded by pneumonia and constant coughing, with expectoration from the right lung. The sufferer continued to grow worse, until, in spite of the best medical treatment and appliances, he wasted away to almost a skeleton from what he had been. Death seemed inevitable and near at hand. Near the Ist inst. he was taken almost with convulsions. Cold sweat oozed from him, while his face and neck grew livid and purple. His hours seemed to be numbered. His father started hurriedly for the physician. Suddenly there ensued a violent, jerking cough, and the iron screw was ejected from the right lung, where it had been since he swallowed it, over five months ago. Proper restoratives were given, and the little fellow has been steaduy improving and growing rapidly. He is now well and fat as a pig.— Bowling Green (Ku.} Pantograph. —-Eph Horn, the negro minstrel, went out of the world with a joke on his lips. He said to one of his attendants: “ I shall be bqtter shortly; I was always a good man on tbe end.” —An Eastern jurist notices the impropriety of the phrase “We will ship your goods,” etc., when the intention is to send by railroad, and suggests the substitution of “We will car your goods,” etc. Virginia received, last year, $3,816,287.18, and spent $3,778,501.69. She owes $85,904,343.53. .