Swallowed a padlock

Edinburgh, March 23. - Extraordinary Surgical Case. - Considerable interest has lately been excited here amongst the members of the medical profession, by the admission of a patient into the Royal Infirmary, who reported that she had swallowed a brass padlock!

The patient's history of the case was as follows:- That about five weeks ago, while amusing herself with a friend, she put the padlock in her mouth, and it instantly slipped down her throat! An emetic was soon afterwards administered, which she found great difficulty in swallowing; vomiting took place immediately afterwards, accompanied with great pain in the throat, and a discharge of blood. During the succeeding twenty-four hours she felt as if the padlock were wedged in the throat, and experienced a painful sensation of suffocation, after which she felt little pain or inconvenience, and concealed the accident from her friends until Sunday the 19th ultimo.

She was soon afterwards admitted into the hospital as a patient of Professor Lizars's, who, from the moment of her admission, was of opinion, that the woman's report was accurate; but doubts on that point existing in the minds of some of his colleagues, he deferred performing the operation for the extraction of the foreign body, which, in his own opinion, was necessary, to place the woman in safety.

On Saturday night last the poor woman was attacked with violent vomiting, accompanied with a feeling of suffocation and great pain in the throat, which continued all night. Dr. James Johnson (son of Mr. Johnson, surgeon, Queen-street), Professor Lizar's hospital assistant, was called at half-past two o'clock on Sunday morning, and finding the patient in imminent and immediate danger, he instantly, and unassisted, introduced an instrument, invented for the purpose by Mr. Macleod, surgical instrument maker, College-street, into the gullet, and happily succeeded in extracting the padlock, to the immediate and complete relief of the sufferer.

The padlock weighed upwards of six drachms (nearly an ounce), and measured an inch and an eighth in breadth, and one inch and two-thirds in length; with the exception of the iron part being covered with rust, it was in no way changed in appearance.

Much praise, we understand, is due to Dr. Johnson for his dexterity in the management of the case referred to; and we are informed, that much credit is due to our ingenious townsman, Mr. Macleod, for his scientific skill in the invention of the instrument employed.