inhaled grass . A chest wall swelling due to

DESPITE frequent contact, inhalation of grasses is a rare occurrence in childhood. In a high proportion of the recorded cases the inhaled foreign material was an inhaled inflorescence (flower or seed head) which had tracked through the lung parenchyma, the pleura and the chest wall, to present as a swelling, either in relationship to a rib or in the subcutaneous tissue. Jackson (1952) reported eighteen cases and reviewed seventeen others from the literature. Of these thirty-five cases, the inflorescence had reached the subcutaneous tissue in twenty-eight. Choremis et al. (1964) described two cases which had followed a similar course and reviewed forty-five cases of grass inhalation. A further case was described by Naylor (1966). The inhaled inflorescence had tracked through the chest wall in no fewer than thirty-two of the forty-eight cases reported to date. The present case is reported in view of the rarity of the condition and because of its relatively silent clinical course.