es; but as
she was of an hysteric nature it seems more likely they had entered the
body through the skin. There is an instance in which 132 needles were
extracted from a young lady's person. Caen describes a woman of
twenty-six, while in prison awaiting trial, succeeding in committing
suicide by introducing about 30 pins and needles in the chest region,
over the heart. Her method was to gently introduce them, and then to
press them deeper with a prayer-book. An autopsy showed that some of
the pins had reached the lungs, some were in the mediastinum, on the
back part of the right auricle; the descending vena cave was
perforated, the anterior portion of the left ventricle was transfixed
by a needle, and several of the articles were found in the liver.
Andrews removed 300 needles from the body of an insane female. The
Lancet records an account of a suicide by the penetration of a
darning-needle in the epigastrium. There were nine punctures in this
region, and in the last the needle was left in situ and fixed by
worsted. In 1851 the same journal spoke of an instance in which 30 pins
were removed from the limbs of a servant girl. It was said that while
hanging clothes, with her mouth full of pins, she was slapped on the
shoulder, causing her to start and swallow the pins. There is another
report of a woman who swallowed great numbers of pins. On her death one
pound and nine ounces of pins were found in her stomach and duodenum.
There are individuals known as "human pin-cushions," who publicly
introduce pins and needles into their bodies for gain's sake.

The wanderings of pins and needles in the body are quite well known.
Schenck records the finding of a swallowed pin in the liver. Haller
mentions one that made its way to the hand. Silvy speaks of a case in
which a quantity of swallowed pins escaped through the muscles, the
bladder, and vagina; there is another record in which the pins escaped
many years afterward from the thigh. The Philosophical Transactions
contain a record of the escape of a pin from the skin of the arm after
it had entered by the mouth. Gooch, Ruysch, Purmann, and Hoffman speak
of needle-wanderings. Stephenson gives an account of a pin which was
finally voided by the bladder after forty-two years' sojourn in a
lady's body. On November 15, 1802, the celebrated Dr. Lettsom spoke of
an old lady who sat on a needle while riding in a hackney coach; it
passed from the injured leg to the other one, whence it w