Dislodging foreign bodies, inspired or swallowed by children, with aminophylline.

Abstract

Children inspire or swallow foreign bodies because they explore things with their mouths. Inspiration of such objects into the air passages is usually the result of a sudden gasp for breath after excitement, crying, or laughing, but swallowing may force an object over the laryngeal aperture. If a foreign body lodges in the esophagus, it is too large or too spiky to pass through to the stomach. An asthmatic girl swallowed a bead without her mother's knowledge, and soon a spastic persistent cough developed. Because of the indefiniteness of signs in the lungs, diagnoses of whooping cough, enlarged mediastinal glands, and bronchopneumonia were made. I observed her first during a true asthmatic attack and prescribed aminophylline solution by rectal retention. The asthmatic attack cleared temporarily, and the bead that had lodged in the bronchus was coughed up. This observation led me to use aminophylline in other patients suspected of inspiring