Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography
introduction of the end of the tube into the pharynx is extremely
483 words | Chapter 53
painful, the second is a little less so, and it is only after a large
number of trials, more or less prolonged, that the patient succeeds in
swallowing ten or twelve inches of the tubing without a disagreeable
sensation.
The washing out of the stomach, performed by means of a long, flexible
tube which the patient partially swallows, and with which he injects
into and removes from his stomach a quantity of tepid water by raising
the tube or letting it hang down to form a 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, after a short
time, to swallow the latter with indifference, at least.
With these sword swallowers it is absolutely the same; for with them it
is only as a consequence of repeated trials that the pharynx becomes
sufficiently accustomed to it to permit them to finally swallow objects
as large and rigid as swords, sabers, canes, and even billiard cues.
Swallowers of forks and spoons serve an analogous apprenticeship. As
known, the talent of these consists in their ability to introduce into
the throat a long spoon or fork while holding it suspended by its
extremity between two fingers. This trick is extremely dangerous, since
the œsophagus exerts a sort of suction on all bodies that are introduced
into it. The spoon or fork is, then, strongly attracted, and if the
individual cannot hold it, it will drop into his stomach, whence it can
only be extracted by a very dangerous surgical operation--gastrotomy. It
was accidents of this kind that made the “forkman” and the “knifeman”
celebrated, and, more recently, the “spoonman” who died from the effects
of the extraction from his stomach of a sirup spoon.
All sword swallowers do not proceed in the same way. Some swallow the
blade directly, without any intermediate apparatus; but in this case,
their sabers are provided at the extremity, near the point, with a small
bayonet-shaped appendage over which they slip a gutta-percha tip without
the spectators perceiving it (F and G). Others do not even take such a
precaution, but swallow the saber or sword just as it is.
This is the mode of procedure of an old zouave, especially, who has
become a poor juggler, and who, in his experiments, allows the
spectators to touch, below his sternum, the projection that the point of
the saber in his stomach makes on his skin.
But the majority of sword swallowers who exhibit upon the stage employ a
guiding tube which they have previously swallowed, so that the
experiments they are enabled to perform become less dangerous and can be
varied more. This tube, which is from forty-five to fifty centimeters
long, is made of very thin metal. Its width is twenty-five millimeters,
and its thickness fifteen (B). These dimensions permit of the easy
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