Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-12-27
The Man With the Movable Heart.


F. Campbell, professor of operative
surgery and gyn@cology. The object
of this interest was a colored man, call
ing himself DIR. Elias Thomas, who says
he was born in Calcutta, India, and is
thirty-nine years of age. According to
his statement he went to Edinburgh,
Scotland, when four years of age, and
remained there until comparatively a
recent period. He says he has diplomas
from the medical college of Edinburgh
and one in Havana. The remarkable
feature about him is that he possesses
the faculty of transferring his heart
from place to place in his body at will,
that usually well-regulated organ obey
| ing his behests as readily as the slave
did the lamp of Aladdin. He made
| full exhibition of this almost inconceiv-
able power in the presence of the large
class of students, DIR. Campbell, Col.
Rains, and DIR. Black, of Louisville,
Ky. He says he has exhibited before
the surgeons of the London hospitals,
! the colleges of Paris, in the ctjniques of
New York and Philadelphia, and more
recently in Charleston, 5. c., where he
excited the interest of professional and
scientific men.
|
! ton in a very quiet way, and without
any great effort, and talking in q
| humorous manner, in the meantime he
made peculiar wave action of the alb
! dominal muscles fifteen or twenty
! times, from below upward, and SEEM
| ing to know the exact time when to
stop, he changed the undulatory move
ment from up downward. He then
asked those present to put their hands
over the region of the abdomen and see
if there were any bony structures there.
! When the experiment was made the
abdomen was found to be perfectly soft
and natural. Then, after momen-
| tary contraction, there was made to ap-
pear a complete shield of ribs covering
two-thirds of the front of the abdomen.
Previous to this, the heart was felt and
found in the right place and beat natur-
ally. Immediately afterward he asked
those in attendance to place their hands
over the lumbar region, whereupon,
low down on that side, a large tumor,
larger than mans fist, appeared un-
der the hand, pulsated like the beating
of the heart, and spontaneously or in
exact accord with the beat of the pulse
at the wrist. This tumor he asked
them to notice when he had caused it
to appear and pulsate in similar man.
ner on the right side, and it was par
ticularly examined by DR.. Campbell,
Col. Rains, and DR.. Black. After this
he proposed to carry the heart back into
the chest, which he did by a sudden
voluntary movement, and then trans
ferred it from the left to the right side,
and back again to the left.
In addition to this he has the power
possessed by only one or two others on
record of voluntarily arrestiug the
heart action and causing the pulse at
the wrist to disappear. The heart when
listened to with the ear to the chest,
during the time of the stoppage, was
found no longer to strike the chest
either al the base or the apex, but an
obscure murmur was still heard by the
ear in oscillation. This case differs
from that of Col. Townsend, of the
British army, which is one of the cases
of voluntary heart stoppage on record,
in the fact that during the process of
arrest he does not lose consciousness
and can continue in conversation, while
in Col. Townsend's case it was kind
of voluntary syncOpe or fainting, or in
other words, "dying at will, as it was
then termed-an experiment finally car
ried too far, resulting in the subjects
death. This effort, Thomas finds, fa-
tigues him, and he does not like to re-
peat it often. He states that DR.. Kent,
of the London hospital, and DR.. Lewis,
each examined his chest by an incision,
and the introduction of q probe, and
declared that his heart is devoid of q
pericardium, his chest without dia-
phragm. DIR. Campbell, who lectured
before the class, expressed the opinion
that it was a congenital monstrosity
In the first place he had either natural
or had acquired an unusual voluntary
power over the abdominal muscles
which seem to be instrumentalities by
which he produces the transfers of the
heart. This could not be done if the
diaphragm existed toAseparate the
thoracic from the abdominal cavity.
There must be at least large opening
in the diaphragm to admit of the heart
passing through it Even with this it
is difficult to account for the heart ap-
pearing so far from its origina! situa-
tion. The appearance of the ribs as n
shield over the abdominal cavity may
be accounted for by his power over the
abdominal muscles, that while he can
carry the heart down into the abdom-
inal cavity, he has also the power of
transferring the abdominal viscera up
into the thoracic cavity. Another
theory in regard to the beating of the
heart on various sides is that, with such
unusual power over the abdominal
p muscles, he may localize the contrac-
ton at will, either in the right or left
side, giving it the appearance of the
heart that is beating. There are phe-
nomena which pertain to the unusual
will-power in his nervous system which
are unprecedented and entirely mex
plicable.
Col. Rains presented theory for the
ribs appearing over the abdomen, the
power of dislocating the posterior at
tachment of the ribs and elOngating
the eartilages.
DR.. Black questioned this as being the
true explanation, inasmuch as the in
tercostal spaces were not widened dur
ing this process in any part OF the
chest, from the first to the last rib.
1t was finally concluded that that
part of the phenomenon pertaining to
, the bony wall of the abdomen was not
: so much the bringing down of the ribs
as the carrying off of the abdominal
\ viscera into the thOracic cavity. The
students were advised to study the case,
for, though they might not arrive al
4 any true explanation, they would, like
8 the farmers sons who were advised to
dig up the ground in search of treasure,
soon enrich themselves by the search.
= Atlantic (GGJ Chronicle.