Swallowing

HUMAN SWALLOWING

It is estimated that it takes 22 muscle pairs and 7 of the 12 cranial nerves for a human to swallow.

You swallow about 600 times per day without thinking about it.

The typical person will swallow 295 times during dinner.

Up to the age of about 6 months babies can breathe and swallow at same time.

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Pope Adrian IV the only English pope, choked to death in 1159 when he accidentally swallowed a fly.

In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.

Princess Alexandra Amalie, the aunt of mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria, suffered from the delusion that she had swallowed a glass grand piano.

In 1843, while performing a conjuring trick for the amusement of his children, the famous English civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel accidentally swallowed a half-sovereign coin which became lodged in his windpipe. For several weeks Brunel coughed himself sick. The press issued daily reports on his predicament, and eventually it was jerked free with the help of a device designed by the engineer.

While singing in Rigoletto at Covent Garden in 1948, opera singer Walter Midgely swallowed a false mustache.

In 2010, managers at Vienna's 18 public pools asked swimmers to stop swallowing the water — after calculating they were losing 5,000 litres of pool water a day and spending an extra £1.11 ($1.46) per pool on chlorine, too.

Today, in order to become an approved member of the Sword Swallowers Association International, they require you to swallow a blade between 15 and 20 inches in length.

Space Cowboy swallowing a sword attached to a metal bar from which weights are suspended

In taste tests, children tend to prefer strawberry and blue raspberry flavored bubble gum, rejecting more complex flavors as they say these make them want to swallow the gum rather than continue chewing.

ANIMAL SWALLOWING

The fastest swallow in nature is that of the frogfish, which sucks its prey down in 0.006 seconds.

A pelican catches fish in its bill, flips it back to drain out water then swallows the fish at once.

Pelican swallowing a fish. By Dinkum - Own work,

The northern leopard frog swallows its prey using its eyes. It uses them to help push food down its throat by retracting them into its head.

Despite being the largest animal on Earth, the Blue Whale cannot swallow anything larger than a beach ball. 

Black Swallower fish are capable of swallowing prey up to ten times their weight.

In 2008, a snake in Australia that swallowed four golf balls thinking they were chicken eggs was saved by emergency surgery. The golf balls were later sold for charity for £630 in an eBay auction.