F – Foreign Objects  

The items in this collection were removed from a larger framed collection of coins, buttons, pins, “jackstones,” and other object removed from the air and food passages of Boston’s children that hung in the corridor outside the Otolaryngology offices for years. The original collection stands as a tribute to Charles F. Ferguson, MD, who dedicated his thirty-five year career at Boston Children’s Hospital to the preservation of the pediatric airway.  

Dr. Charles Ferguson joined the BCH surgical staff in 1940. He was hired by the surgeon-in-chief William Ladd to devote his otolaryngology practice to children. As such, he became the first full time pediatric otolaryngologist in the United States. Disorders of the larynx, trachea and bronchi were his principal professional focus. 

His pioneering work in pediatric airway endoscopy and the development of techniques to diagnose congenital airway malformations led to his receipt of the Chevalier Jackson Award from the American Bronchoesophagological Association in 1974, and the James Newcomb Award from the American Laryngological Society in 1979. 

Today, the Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Enhancement cares for infectious and inflammatory disorders of the ear, nose and paranasal sinus, throat, upper aerodigestive tract and laryngotracheal airway. In addition, the audiologists, speech-language pathologists and educators, who comprise our Center for Communication Enhancement Division, evaluate and rehabilitate children with a wide range of hearing, swallowing, voice and speech sensory impairments.