(_For the Mirror_.)
The mischiefs arising from the bad custom of many people swallowing the
stones of plums and other fruit are very great. In the _Philosophical
Transactions_, No. 282, there is an account of a woman who suffered
violent pains in her bowels for thirty years, returning once in a month,
or less, owing to a plum-stone which had lodged; which, after various
operations, was extracted. There is likewise an account of a man, who
dying of an incurable colic, which had tormented him many years, and
baffled the effects of medicine, was opened after his death, and in his
bowels was found the cause of his distemper, which was a ball, composed
of tough and hard matter, resembling a stone, being six inches in
circumference, when measured, and weighing an ounce and a half; in the
centre of this there was found the stone of a common plum. These
instances sufficiently prove the folly of that common opinion, that the
stones of fruits are wholesome. Cherry-stones, swallowed in great
quantities, have occasioned the death of many people; and there have
been instances even of the seeds of strawberries, and kernels of nuts,
collected into a lump in the bowels, and causing violent disorders,
which could never be cured till they were carried off.