The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1886-07-15
A PECULIAR AFFLICTION,
A MINISTER'S FALSE TEETH LODG.
ING IN HIS THROAT.
Suffering Intensely For Years-Offer.
ing a Heavy Reward for Their
Safe RemoyaI-SimilarC Gases.


A recent communication from Orville,
Ohio, to the Cincinnati Enquirer says
"Some four years ago the Rev. Richard
P. Baughman went to bed with vul-
canized rubber plate holding four teeth
(all inciscrs) in his mouth. During the
night, while he was asleep, the plate
became dislodged and slipped down his
windpipe. All attempts to remove it
were unsuccessful, and various ply
sicians tackled the case to remove the
foreign substance, which had been
pushed into the esophagus and lodged
there on the right side, where it is to-day.
The Rev. Baughman suffered indescrib-
able pain in consequence, and from a once
heavy weight of nearly 200 pounds has
fallen to the rather light weight of .18O
pounds. His speech betrays the presence
of some foreign substance in his throat,
and his continued hawking is caused by
the teeth, which have made him resem-
BILE consumptive, yet a recent examina-
tion made by medical expert in Chicago
showed that his lungs were sound and
that his coughing was caused by the
teeth. During the four years he has had
the teeth in his esophagus he has not
eaten any substantial food, such as bread,
potatoes, meat and other vegetables, be-
ing unable to swallow them, but has
subsistcd on raw beef chopped fine, soup
and stimulants. In drinking he is COM
PEELED to throw his head far back, as
though gargling his throat, and allow
the liquid to pass slowly down his throat.
In his present condition he is wholly un-
able to pursue his calling. He is a man
of forty-two years and veteran of the
forty-first Illinois volunteers, He is n
man of means, and offers $40, 900 to the
person who will remove the teeth with
out injuring him. If life is spared him
he will 60 to the hospital at Paris, France,
next fall and have the teeth removed by
the surgeons knife"
In an editorial upon the foregoing, the
Troy On. W Times has the following in
teresting observation: ,"The case of the
Rev. Mr.. Baughman involves one of
those accidents which fortunately rarely
happen to afflict mankind. Since 1873,
nearly $50 years ago, the medical records
contain only thirty-three cases sim 'r
to his own, though doubtless
there were many more not reported
by the physicians in attendance.
That number, however, appears to COM
prise all in which the operation known
as esophagotomy was performed, since it
is so rare in practice and requires such
skillful use of the knife that it is scarcely
probable surgeon who had successfully
achieved it would not deem it to be in
cumbent upon him to report the operation
for the benefit of the profession, if not
for the enhancement of his own reputa-
ton. In not all of these cases were the
foreign substances lodged in the esopha-
gus such as that which affiicts the Rev.
Mr.. Baughman. Generally they were
pieces of bone that had been partially
swallowed in the act of eating, not infre-
euently pieces of money, and in eight
they were false teeth with their plate ut
attachments. In four of these latter
cases the operating surgeon was the chief
Tie nsssSiht stair -of the Sister hos
?pital of this city. He also successfully
performed the operation of esophagoto-
nv upon an infant for the removal of a
nickle cent.