The daily Cairo bulletin., 1884-01-08
SWORD.SWALLOWERS.
How Professionals Train Them
selves for These Daring
EeatS.


When physician introduces his fin-
ger, the handle of a spoon or pencil
into the throat of patient, the latter
experiences an extremely disagreeable
sensation. Any touching, however
slight it may be, of the pharynx causes
strangling, pain and nausea, and the
organ reacts with violence against the
obstruction that presents itself to free
respiration. There is no one who has
not experienced more than once the
disagreeable sensation, and for this
reason we are Justly surprised when we
meet with people who seem to be proof
against it, and who, for example, intro
duce into their pharynx large, solid and
stiff objects like sword blades, and
cause them to penetrate to depth that
seems incredible. 1t is experiments OF
this kind that constitutes the tricks OF
the sword swallowers.
These experiments are nearly al-
ways the same. The individual comes
out dressed in q brilliant costume. At
one side of him are flags Of different
nationalities surrounding q panoply OF
sabres, swords, and yatguns, and at the
other stack Of guns provided with
bayonets. Taking fiat sabre, whose
blade and hilt have been cut out of the
same sheet OF metal, the blade being
from So to 60 centimeters In length, he
introduces its extremity
INTO HIS THROAT,
taps the hilt gently, and the blade at
length disappears. He then repeats tho
experiment In swallowing the sword At
single gulp. Subsequently. after
swallowing and disgorging two Of these
same swords, he causes ono to pene-
trate up to It's guard, . second not
quite SO far, . third . little less still.
and fourth up to about halt OF Its
length.
Pressing, nov, on the hilts. he swal.
lows all four blades at gulp; and then
takes them out leisurely, one by one.
The effect IL quite surprising. After
swallowing several swords and ssbres.
he takes an old musket,, armed with
triangular bayonet, and swallows the
latter, the gun remaining vertical over
his head. Finally he borrows q large
sabre from a dragoon who Is present
for the purpose and causes two thirds
of it to disappear. As trick, on be-
ing encored, the sword swallower bor-
rows a cane from . person In the audi
ence and swallows 1t almost entirely.
A certain number of the spectators
usually think the performer produces
an illusion by the aid of some trick,
and that 1t is impossible to swallow
sword blade. But this Is mistake,
for sword-swallowers who employ arti-
fees are few in number and their ex-
periments but slightly varied, while the
majority really do introduce into their
mouth and food passages the blades
that they cause to disappear.
The back parts of the mouth, In spite
of their sensitiveness and rebellion
against contact with solid bodies, are
capable Of becoming SO changed
through habit that they gradually get
used to abnormal contacts. This fact
is taken advantage of in medicine. It
daily happens that persons are afflicted
with disorders Of the throat or stomach
and can no longer swallow or take
nourishment, and would die of exhaus-
ton were they not fed artifcially by
means OF
THE oEsOPHAEGAL TUBE.
This latter is a vulcanized rubber tube
which the patient swallows after the
manner Of sword-swallowers, and
through the extremity of which an aid
introduces milk and bouillon. But the
patient, before being able to make dai-
ly use of the apparatus, must serve a
genuine apprenticeship. The first in
production OF the end OF the tube into
the pharynx is extremely painful, the
second little less SO, and it is only af-
ter large number OF trials more or
less prolonged, that the patient sue
ceeds in swallowing thirty or forty
centimeters of the tubing without q
disagreeable sensation.
The washing out of the stomach, per-
formed by means Of long, flexible
tube, which the patient partially swal-
lows, and with which he injects into
and removes from his stomach a guam
tity Of tepid water by raising the tube
or letting il hang down like q siphon,
likewise necessitates an apprenticeship
of some days; but the patient succeeds
in accustoming his organs to contact
with the tube, and is finally able to
swallow the tube, after short time,
with Indifference IL not satisfaction.
With these sword-swallowers it is ab-
solutely the same; for, with them, 1t Is
only as q consequence Of repeated trial
that the pharynx becomes sufficiently
accustomed to it to permit them to f.
nally swallow objects as large and rigid
as swords, sabres, canes, and even Bill