The Sun.
London, England, 1828-01-16 00:00:00

NEEDLES EXTRACTED FROM VARIOUS

PARTS OF THE BODY.

TO TILE EDITOR OF THE LONDON MEDICAL GAVETTE.
SlR—Having observed in your Journal an
account of a case at the Middlesex Hospital, in
which a large pin was removed from the abdo-
minal parietes of a female, I beg to send the
notes of an analogous case which occurred to
me some time ago.
Your obedient servant,

Saville-row, Dec. 29. B. C. BRODIE.
Mrs. H., a middle-aged woman, had been for
a considerable time placed under circumstances
which made it necessary for her to make exer-
tions beyond those to which she was well equal,
and which also occasioned her to undergo a great
deal of anxiety and affliction. When at last
these circumstances had ceased to exist, she was
left in a state of great nervousness, languor, and
depression of spirits, and subject to fits, appa-
rently connected with hysteria, in which she was
for a time in a state approaching to that of in-
sensibility. Her complexion was pale : she had
little or no desire for food ; and she complained
of a constant pain, which she referred to a spot
on the left side, about three or four inches in
diameter, in the situation of the short ribs.
One evening she rung for her maid servant,
and told her that she had dropped a paper con-
taining fifty small needles on a low stool on which
she rested her foot, and that she thought some of
them had stuck in her leg. It was supposed that
previous to her ringing the bell she had been
seized with one of the hysterical fits already men-
tioned. The servant sent to a medical prac-
titioner in the neighbourhood, by whom she was
usually attended. This gentleman discovered
the ends of two small needles projecting through
the skin a little above the allele, and he extracted
them with the assistance of a pair of forceps.
On looking at the paper of needles which
had been dropped, eight of the needles
only were found left out of the fifty which it was
said to have contained. The footstool was then
examined, and at a subsequent period it was
broken to pieces, and two or three broken pieces
of needles were discovered in it, but nothing
more.

A few days after this, Mrs. H. said that she
had discovered another needle in her leg. I was
nov, sent for to see her; I found her very nerv-
ous and hysterical, and complaining a great deal
of pain in her side and leg. I examined the
latter, and felt distinctly the extremities of two
needles a little below the skin. I made a punc-
ture over each of them with a lancet, and ex-
tracted them with a pair of forceps. A few days
afterwards I was sent for again to see her, and I
removed two more needles from the leg. At
different periods after this, in the course of the
ensuing six or eight weeks, several more needles
were discovered, which I also extracted. I re-
moved in all as many as twenty-six needles, two
had been taken away before I was called in, so
that the whole number amounted to twenty-
eight. During the whole of this time, Mrs. H.
suffered exceedingly with pain in the leg, which
became (Edematous, and much swollen ; she
took scarcely any food ; had very little sleep ;
became still more enfeebled than she had
been before ; and none of the remedies which
her physician prescribed seemed either to
increase her strength or lessen her sufferings.
The pain in the left side continued; although she
spoke of it less than formerly, on account (as
it appeared) of her attention being occupied by
the greater degree of pain in the leg.
Towards the end of June, she was observed
one afternoon to be weaker and more depressed
than she had been before. During the evening
the symptoms of exhaustion increased ; she gra-
dually fell into a state of insensibility, the pulse
became imperceptible, and the extremities cold,
and at two o'clock on the following morning she
expired.

1 examined the body in the presence of her
other medical attendants. No morbid appear-
ances could be discovered in any part, except.
the leg from which the needles had been extracted,
the cellular membrane of which was loaded with
lymph and serum.
Several needles were found to have been left
imbedded in the cellular membrane. The exact
number was not ascertained, but there was rea-
son to believe that they were sufficient, with those
formerly extracted, to account for the whole
number which had been missing,
The side which had been the scat of the pain
was very carefully examined, but nothing was dis-
covered in it to account for the uneasiness which
had been referred to that part.—London Medi-
cal Gazette, Jan. 12,1828.

by
twofoung me:,
On Wednesday evening, as the coachmo "i
J. C. PARKER, Esq., after setting down Mr. C,'"l"",l.''
ricer Thames sip
man's Land ; and i
KEMBLE, at the theatre, was returning for Mi. P"'"1"'
family, he was met in Whitefriargateie,
driving furiously in a gig, one of the shafts o,f which "-
determined on sending Id'
tered the chest of one of Mr. P.'s valuable """, and
killed it on the spot.—Hull Packet.
There are fitting out in the
n. labour has so increased
oe conveyance of eon
ships, of about 500 tons each, for
purposes, that the numbers Lu
victs to New South Wales and yea D
is said that the Government have
is transportation to thou
the prisoners whose sentenci
colonies, where the demand il
especially for agricultural
taken off the Government charge immediately on their
arrival from Europe. At no period could the expens,
attending their transport be less; the Government ha,
taken up the late ships at not exceeding 41. 17e. per to,
register.