The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-07-25
WITH 4 BULLET IN HIS HEART.
Charles Nelson Has Thus Lived Since July 4,
and He May Recover.

and He May Recover.
From the Chicago Record.
Charles Nelson's heart will carry weight to
the end of It's race with time. An ounce Of lead
10 tho handicap, and the most daring Of surgeons
would shake his head II the south side cyclist
were to ask to be relieved of his burden and al
lowed to run out his race like other men.
II three skiagraphs of the injured mans chest
can be trusted, the bullet which pierced his
breast on the night of July / in Washington
Park. lodged in the septum Of his heart-the
four-fold partition of muscular fibre that d.
vides the interior Of that organ into auricles and
and down 100000 times a day. bidding defiance
with every pulsation to the law made of doctors
that the touch Of %oi hostile Sd1so metal Stsall TO a Mans ma I he art
ant upon the heaing of the wound in the outer
The three negatives all show the same dense.
schmidss,D who made them, marks the location Of
the bullet which crashed full into the sternum
and lost Itself il nth the sI masses g Of muscle uhasn,. thai dadn Liz
usually made by bits of metal when subjected to
the x-rays. Tn irreRularity, experts say, IL
certain evidence that the leaden pellet is i'm.
bedded In muscular tissue, whose movements
the front view and the back viewNtho shadow of
the bullet falls in the same place,,almost exact
y st IN eae f tSs anS "a o oft I'm 5eP fpnrt Ih mari dim oS ri hbta"A'
In tho profile view Of Nelson 5 thorax, taken
Saturday. the location of the black spot show.
that the. bullet penetrated two and one-half
s stopped o. % Ssfssfsso it A@ eatd aP%i't the o't thoras The
pericardium, which incloses the heart, touches
the sternum, itself less than an inch in thick
ness. Tho only conclusion, that, can be drawn.
tho surgeons say, is that the other inch and a
half OF its path was ploughed through the hbres
of tho heart.
The extreme thickness of tho ventricular walls
Of the heart is one-half inch, while the walls Of
tho auricles are even thinner, 30 that unless 1t
lodged in the hbres OF the heart 1t would BIO i'm
possible, the surgeons say, for the lead to plunge
forward an inch and a half without puncturing
one OF the cavities OF the heart. That It did
Its fight DR.. Hall OF the Chicago Hospital thinks
unlikely because of the relatively small hemor.
rhage Nelson suffered after the shooting and
skiagraphs-a little above . lateral Inc drawn
The theory that the bullet lodged in the peri,
and the fact that the. bullet did not puncture
either Of the lungs. which approach within an
inch OF tho hole In tho sternun, proves that 1t
did not encounter either of the side kyalls. About
the only place that 1t could have pHshed even an
inch into the organ without rupturing the wall
beyond repair is at the junction of the septa
r. II. Babcock, tho heart specialist, Is inclined
to regard as the probable point where the bullet
lodged. In tho normal heart the point where
the septa join usually fiutters up and down mid
way between the ends of the fourth pair OF ribs
just where the bullet plunged into Nelson's
chest.
Or. L. J. Hamilton. the Scotch surgeon and
pathologist. cites more. than fifty cases where
rupture of the heart walls did not result In i'm
mediate death. The most remarkable OF ell and
the one that approaches nearest to Nelson's case
Is that, OF the prize fighter Poole, who was shot
n the heart In New Jersey, while battling with
in four days and wanted to finish the interrupted
contest, but twelve days later he collapsed sud
denly and died without recovering consciousness.