Foreign bodies in air and food passages; a clinical observation in Taiwan.

Abstract

COMPARATIVE surveys of statistics relating to foreign bodies in the air and food passages are of great interest, and, when considered in relation to the geographical areas represented, may be of considerable ethnological importance. The object of this paper is twofold: first, to present a series of consecutive cases of foreign bodies dealt with between 1946 and 1950 at the National Taiwan University Hospital, and second, to compare the statistical aspects of this series of cases with those of other authors. Our series of consecutive cases consists of 53 cases of esophageal foreign bodies and 17 of foreign bodies in the air passages.¹The esophageal foreign bodies constitute 34.4% of all esophageal conditions seen in our department during the period from 1946 to 1950, but only 0.28% of all cases in which treatment was given during the same period. This incidence is smaller than that of C. Chang, who