Swallowing Foreign Bodies

The new book, “Swallow,” is a remarkable testament to the strangeness of the human experience, and our ability to swallow. Mary Cappello uncovers the stories of the odd objects people ingest and Dr. Chevalier Jackson, a man who dedicated much of his life to removing them from people’s insides. He saved thousands of people’s lives by perfecting a technique that most people were too trepidatious or didn’t have the patience to develop; he used broncoscopes without anesthesia to enter the delicate passageways of the upper torso and treat each foreign body as a unique mechanical problem.