Operate on Human Heart.
Probably the most daring chapter in modern surgery is that which treats of operations on the heart, says the World’s Work. “The road to the heart is only two or three inches long, but it has taken surgery nearly 2,600 years to traverse it,” is one writer’s striking remark. How recent this work is, is made plain from the fact that a book published by Stephen Paget, in 1895, contained a chapter on “Surgery of the Heart,” the words being contemptuously inclosed in quotation marks.
The scientist, as well as the layman, looked upon the heart with an almost superstitious awe. Any injury necessarily implied death; any interference with such an injury could only hasten the end. Yet many shrewd observers in the course of the ages had noted that all heart wounds did not result in instantaneous death.
It was not until ten or fifteen years ago that surgeons began to act upon this knowledge. In exceptional cases death did not result immediately from a heart wound; there were intervals of a few days or a few weeks. Why not utilize the interval in an attempt to sew up the wound? Medical history now reports many successful operations of this kind.
An especially noteworthy one, performed upon an Alabama negro boy in 1902, illustrates the resources of modern heart surgery. This boy had been the victim of an especially nasty stab wound. The knife had penetrated the apex of the heart and passed into the left ventricle, making a wound nearly half an inch long. When the boy was placed upon the operating table, in the little negro cabin, the signs of death had already appeared. His feet were cold and his face showed signs of the utmost distress. The surgeon made a little, windowlike opening just above the heart. Through this they could readily see the injured organ, the blood spurting from the wound at each pulsation. One surgeon put in his hand, pulled the heart upward, and held it while another sewed the wound with catgut.
The operation—performed without an anæsthetic—lasted fifty-five minutes; on the sixteenth day the boy was sitting up; in a short time his heart was as good as ever.