A medical point - keeping museum specimens is no good if they are not adequately catalogued and the catalogue is accessible. Otherwise the collection is a cabinet of curiosities. However the object is a better anectdotal teaching aid for students than any pathology image of tissues or organs. It would be interesting to know if the child had his mental problems before he chewed the car - did that predispose him to eat odd things?

A historic point - 'sugar of lead' was used to sweeten things like bad port wine in the 18th century. Franklin's NW passage expedition became a disaster because the crew were weakened by lead poisoning fron their novel modern tinned food. Roman empire may have fallen partly due to lead in the water pipes. The common theme is that lead poisons only slowly. And it was (before plastics came along) one of the few malleable substances.

Safety legislation - recent cases of poisoning with toys are often in imported items. Lead in toys has been illegal in uk for a long time and possibly since before 1963.