This great carelessness as to the purity or impurity of their drinking water shows the difficulty medical officers must experience in their endeavors to prevent the Sepoys of a regiment from drinking water from condemned or doubtful sources during a cholera or typhoid epidemic." Foreign Bodies in the Pharynx and Esophagus .-- Aylesbury mentions a boy who swallowed a fish-hook while eating gooseberries.

He tried to pull it up, but it was firmly fastened, and a surgeon was called.

By ingeniously passing a leaden bullet along the line, the weight of the lead loosened the hook, and both bullet and hook were easily drawn up.
Babbit and Battle report an ingenious method of removing a piece of meat occluding the esophagus--the application of trypsin.

Henry speaks of a German officer who accidentally swallowed a piece of beer bottle, 3/8 x 1/8 inch, which subsequently penetrated the esophagus, and in its course irritated the recurrent laryngeal and vagi, giving rise to the most serious phlegmonous inflammation and distressing respiratory symptoms.

A peculiar case is that of the man who died after a fire at the Eddystone Lighthouse.