MORE than 60 years ago, the pioneer endoscopist Chevalier Jackson described his experience with foreign bodies of the lung.
Metallic foreign bodies cause little specific reaction. A very smooth, dense, insoluble, inorganic substance causes no trauma and little reaction for a long time, if drainage and aeration are not interfered with. On the other hand, a sharp, ragged fragment of such form as to cause continued trauma may be followed by such serious consequences as to make the prognosis grave if the intruder is not removed within a few weeks.1
The literature is filled with many interesting reports of foreign bodies in the lung.2 However, the reported instances of erosion of a foreign body into a bronchus are rare.
Report of a Case
One month before the Armistice was signed in World War I, a 23-year-old soldier was struck in the left side of his chest by a piece