196 THE HOUSE 1 LIVE IN. 



In its passage it goes directly over the trap 

 door of which I have already spoken; and if 

 we were not careful, would sometimes drop 

 into it. If we laugh, or cough, or speak, or 

 sing, while the food is passing by this opening, 

 there is very great danger. 



TRAP DOOR. It is true that this door usu- 

 ally closes when anything approaches, almost 

 as quickly as I formerly told you the eye does 

 when anything approaches that. But it is also 

 true that, as it is in the case of the eye, it does 

 not always close quite soon enough, and sub- 

 stances sometimes actually fall in. When they 

 do, [they produce irritation and tickling, and 

 induce us to cough, which occasionally throws 

 up the offending substance. When it does not, 

 the coughing frequently soon subsides, and if 

 the substance is nothing harder than a piece of 

 bread, it dissolves slowly, and gets away ; but 

 if it is something harder, as a piece of a 

 chesnut or a kernel of corn, it usually causes 

 trouble ; and, unless the surgeon can remove it 

 by cutting open the windpipe, ends in death. 



While writing this chapter, I have read in 

 the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, of 



