A brief note from the March 22, 1908 New York Times:

“Berlin–The German medical world is aghast at the revelation made through an operation just performed at Herschberg by a Silesian surgeon upon a 16-year-old girl who was suffering from a strange internal growth.

The opening of this growth revealed the presence of over three pounds of iron, consisting of 1,410 one-inch nails, 160 bent pins, 70 double-pointed needles, and 7 nail heads. For variety’s sake there were four splinters of glass. The girl came out of the operation splendidly.

No explanation has been published to show how it came about that this large stock of hardware got together in the young woman’s interior and became encysted there.”