734 
WANDERING NEEDLES. 
visions, viz.: That he will at all times permit the proper 
officers to visit and inspect his premises; that within a reason¬ 
able time he will effect any alteration in his premises requested 
by the local board; that his premises shall be kept constantly 
clean, and that in the months of April and October they shall 
be thoroughly cleaned and whitewashed with a lime and dis- 
infectant preparation; that he shall not use any premises not 
passed by the board, and that no contaminated milk shall be 
mixed with pure milk. They also set out that, in the event of 
any one becoming ill from an infectious disease on the pre¬ 
mises of the dairyman notice shall at once be given to the 
health officer, whose instructions must be carried out, that 
no person so suffering shall have anything to do with the 
milk, and that if any dairyman break any of the regulations 
his name shall be struck off the register. 
WANDERING NEEDLES. 
The vagaries of needles which have been introduced in the 
body, and have escaped immediate removal, have in all ages 
attracted the attention of collectors of the marvellous in 
medicine. Hildanus related an instance of a woman who 
swallowed several pins and passed them six years afterwards; 
but a more remarkable instance of prolonged detention was 
lately recorded by Dr. Stevenson, of Detroit.—That of a lady 
aged seventy-five, who last year passed, by the urethra, after 
some months* symptoms of vesical irritation, a pin which she 
had swallowed while picking her teeth with it in the year 1835 
— forty-two years previously. Occasional pain in the throat 
was the only immediate symptom, but in 1845 she was seized 
with severe gastric pain, which passed away, and she had no 
further symptoms until haematuria in 1S76. This curious 
tolerance of such foreign bodies exhibited by the tissues is 
often observed in lunatic asylums. M. Silvy recorded some 
years ago the case of a woman who had a penchant for pins 
and needles so strong that she made them, in effect, part of 
her daily diet, and, after her death, 1400 or 1500 w^ere re¬ 
moved from various parts of the body. Another case, almost 
as striking, has been recorded by Dr. Gillette—that of a girl 
in whom, from time to time, needles were found beneath the 
skin, which they perforated, and were removed by the fingers 
or forceps. Concerning the way in which they had got into 
her system no information could be extracted from her. She 
was carefully watched, and in the course of eighteen months 
no less than 320 needles were extracted, all being the same 
size. Most were black and oxidized, but some had retained 
