It therefore seems remarkable that there are people whose physiologic construction is such that, without apparent difficulty, they are enabled to swallow a sword many inches long.

Many of the exhibitionists allow the visitors to touch the stomach and outline the point of the sabre through the skin.

The sabre used is usually very blunt and of rounded edges, or if sharp, a guiding tube of thin metal is previously swallowed.

The explanation of these exhibitions is as follows: The instrument enters the mouth and pharynx, then the esophagus, traverses the cardiac end of the stomach, and enters the latter as far as the antrum of the pylorus, the small culdesac of the stomach.

In their normal state in the adult these organs are not in a straight line, but are so placed by the passage of the sword.