A statistical study was carried out on 64 cases of the foreign bodies in the food and air passages, who visited the Dept. of Otolaryng. of Korea General Hospital from Jan. 1971 to Dec. 1976. The following results were obtained. 1. The total number of foreign bodies were 64 cases, which is approximately 0.69% of the total number of new patients who visited the Out Patient Department during the same period. Among them 55 cases were foreign bodies in the food passage and 9 cases were foreign bodies in the air passage. The ratio between the food and air passages was about 6.1 : 1. 2. The frequently encountered foreign bodies in the esophagus were coin, bone, meat and food particle in order. Bean and peanut were the most frequent foreign bodies in the air passage. 3. In sex distribution, 33 cases were male and 31 cases were female and the ratio between male and female was 1.1 : 1. 4. In the age distribution, 35 cases (54.7%) of all foreign bodies were under 5 years old, especially coin was 96.2%. 5. The most prevalent site of lodgement in the food passage was the first esophageal narrowing, which corresponded to 69.1%. In the air passage, bronchial and laryngeal foreign bodies were 4 cases (44.4%) respectively. Among the bronchial foreign bodies, 3 cases were in the right bronchus and 1 case was in the left bronchus. 6. In duration of lodgement 38 cases (69.1%) of the foreign bodies in the food passage were removed within 24 hours and the longest duration was 90 days. 7. Almost all of the foreign bodies in the food and air passages were removed under local or no anesthesia by esophagoscopy, laryngoscopy or bronchoscopy.