Medicine: Hearts

The normal heart is shaped like an acorn. It is somewhat larger than a clenched fist. On the average it is 5 in. long 3½ in. wide, 2 in. thick. Hearts of men weigh 8 to 10 oz., hearts of women 2 oz. less.

¶In Detroit, one Patrick Klein (pugilist) last week argued with a bullyboy thug — who fired four shots point blank. One bullet pierced Pugilist Klein’s chest, nicked the outer wall of his heart, fortunately for him, just as it was contracting in its beat. Had the heart been expanding at the instant of the bullet’s passing, it would have been torn mortally. Last week Surgeon Bernard Friedlander at Detroit’s Highland Park General Hospital laid open Pugilist Klein’s chest with infinite care not to disturb the even pulsation of the heart, plucked out the imbedded bullet. The patient will probably live.

¶ In Columbus, Ohio, Railroad Switchman Harry C. Cramer had an x-ray made of his chest. The left side had been distressing him. When he breathed, it scarcely budged. The x-ray showed that fluid had accumulated in his left pleural cavity (the space in which the lung moves), had squeezed his left lung up until it barely moved under his shoulder blade, had forced his heart far out of normal over to the right side of his body. Surgeons at Columbus’ New McKinley Hospital tapped his chest with a hollow, apirating needle, drew off some pus, a minor operation which gave Switchman Cramer some relief. Fluid again accumulated. So surgeons last week cut through his sixth rib (the routine procedure for an empyema operation), put a rubber tube into the opening, let the fluid drain off. With the fluid pressure removed the heart eased back into normal location on the left side. Probably the patient will live.

¶At Philadelphia Edele Rose Weist, 5, snuffled annoyingly. Her parents took her to St. Mary’s Hospital for removal of her adenoids and tonsils. The operator worked carefully. It was a simple operation. But the child hacked, coughed, gasped—inhaled seeping blood into her lungs. She died, suffocated. Dr. Morris Smith, at the operating table, snatched a hypodermic syringe loaded with adrenalin (potent cardiac stimulant), shot the drug into her heart. Oxygen was pumped down her throat. After eight minutes of death she breathed again. The heart worked. She lives.