Sec. 410. The Substances we should endeavour to extract or draw out, though it be more painful and less easy than to push them down, are all those, whose Consequences might be highly dangerous, or even mortal, if swallowed. Such are all totally indigestible Bodies, as Cork, Linen-Rags, large Fruit Stones, Bones, Wood, Glass, Stones, Metals; and more especially if any further Danger may be superadded to that of its Indigestibility, from the Shape, whether rough, sharp, pointed, or angular, of the Substance swallowed. Wherefore we should chiefly endeavour to extract Pins, Needles, Fish-bones, other pointed Fragments of Bones, Bits of Glass, Scissars, Rings, or Buckles. Nevertheless it has happened, that every one of these Substances have at one Time or another been swallowed, and the most usual Consequences of them are violent Pains of the Stomach, and in the Guts; Inflammations, Suppurations, Abscesses, a slow Fever, Gangrene, the _Miserere_ or Iliac Passion; external Abscesses, through which the Bodies swallowed down have been discharged; and frequently, after a long Train of Maladies, a dreadful Death. Sec. 411. When such Substances have not passed in too deep, we should endeavour to extract them with our Fingers, which often succeeds. If they are lower, we should make use of Nippers or a small _Forceps_; of which Surgeons are provided with different Sorts. Those which some Smoakers carry about them might be very convenient for such Purposes; and in Case of Necessity they might be made very readily out of two Bits of Wood. But this Attempt to extract rarely succeeds, if the Substance has descended far into the _Oesophagus_, and if the Substance be of a flexible Nature, which exactly applies itself to, and fills up the Cavity or Chanel of it. Sec. 412. If the Fingers and the Nippers fail, or cannot be duly applied, Crotchets, a Kind of Hooks, must be employed. These may be made at once with a pretty strong iron Wire, crooked at the End. It must be introduced in the flat Way, and for the better conducting of it, there should be another Curve or Hook at the End it is held by, to serve as a Kind of Handle to it, which has this further Use, that it may be secured by a String tied to it; a Circumstance not to be omitted in any Instrument employed on such Occasions, to avoid such ill Accidents as have sometimes ensued, from these Instruments slipping out of the Operators Hold. After the Crotchet has passed beyond and below the Substance, that obstructs the Passage, it is drawn up again, and hooks up with it and extracts that Impediment to swallowing. This Crotchet is also very convenient, whenever a Substance somewhat flexible, as a Pin or a Fishbone stick, as it were, across the Gullet: the Crotchet in such Cases seizing them about their middle Part, crooks and thus disengages them. If they are very brittle Substances, it serves to break them; and if any Fragments still stick within, some other Means must be used to extract them.