When A Hughesville "Woman's Lungs Were A Junk Shop" - 1900

 
Mrs H.T. Smith of Hughesville accidentally swallowed the snap and wire of a suspender in 1895, and after years of suffering tuberculosis like symptoms, coughed up the debris in 1900.

The Philadelphia Times ran the following article on December 7th 1900:

 The case of Mrs. H. T. Smith, who sis weeks ago coughed up the snap of a suspender and a week ago coughed up a spring coil, in a most peculiar one and has attracted the attention of medical men.

 About five years ago Mrs. Smith, then Miss McHenry, thoughtlessly placed a snap off a pair of suspenders between her lips. Accidentally the piece of metal slipped down her throat and into the windpipe. 

Physicians declared that the snap would give her no trouble, as it had passed down her throat into the stomach. 

In time she experienced trouble In her right bronchia and was affected exactly as a person suffering with tuberculosis.  The difficulty continued, and the afflicted woman was almost continuously under the care of a physician. 

During the latter part of October, while seized with a severe coughing spell. Mrs. Smith spit out the metal snap minus the brass spring. She Improved immediately and has since Increased in weight. Last Monday Mrs. Smith was compelled to cough violently and felt a severe pain In her chest. Almost immediately she spat out the missing spring from the suspender snap. Tire spring was in the form of a coil about three eighths of an inch long, and an inch in diameter, with a prong at each end.  It was coated with a slimy substance flecked with blood, under which was the brass wire as bright as the day it slipped down the woman's throat.

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Nettie Rebecca McHenry, 1875-1947, was the daughter of Ruggler & Sarah Ann [Yetter] McHenry.  She married Harry Thomas Smith, 1870-1942.  Nettie was 72 years old when she died.  Nettie and Harry are both buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Hughesville.