Those readers of ours investigating the pre-Roentgen history of foreign objects found in human cavities can turn to Dr. Alfred Poulet’s seminal treatise on the subject published in 1880. Currently up for bidding on eBay, the two tome investigation is full of fascinating cases we prefer not to write about.
From the eBay listing:
This two-volume set is regarded as the first comprehensive work in this field, up to 1880. An important feature of these books is the detailed description of hundreds of bizarre cases reported in the literature up to that date (1880), involving foreign bodies in all openings of the body. The books describe, for example, a case of a woman who had been experiencing vaginal bleeding for several months, but which failed to respond to conventional treatments. After direct observation, the patient was found to have a live leech in the vagina [after removal of the leech, the doctor recommended her to use an underwear or a cork stopper when going to the river for a bathe]. Leech died of starvation after removal. There are other cases in which spoons, cups, needles, glass bottles, hair brushes, avocado pits, beans, snails, or a variety of insects, arachnids, or fish were removed from different orifices of the human body.
Link to eBay: A TREATISE ON FOREIGN BODIES IN SURGICAL PRACTICE