The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-01-12
, THERE NO VITAL SPOT? |?
wounds in the Brain and Heart Whioh
Have Net Proved Fatal.
Chieago Tribune.

With shrug. II would prefer not TO
10 shot at all, whesher In the heart,
lead lungs, liver or brain, and yet j
vetakcn note Of many cases recently
IN which persons have sustained gun
.Lot wounds of supposedly fatal char
Letter. who are still alive aud going
,hout their business
The doctor and his companion were
,,ssipg downtown museum when the
.ouyersation took this turn. Among
H.. freaks pictured and caricatured in
frout of the building YVES man with
ragged bullet wound torn through
hi. heart-which organ WIS vividly
.,roscd in the haring daub-whiie the
.,.el of death was hoving over him
readv to snatch him away at any mo-
m.nt. The appeal to morbid amuse-
uert seekers was such as to lead to
the inference that the unfortunate
with the wound in his heart might
,blicinsly drop dead at any minute,
for the special delectation of those
clio paid their dimes and walked in to
see him.
-Thcn.' said the doctors friend,
"a slo, or a stab in the heart is not
necessarily fatal, as it is understood
by modern surgery =
Not at all, returned the doctor.
But Of course we are not speaking of
wounds as big and terrible as the one
i, .ha! museum picture that is appa
rcntly even worse than the thrust re-
ceivcd by Mercutio-looks about as
dccp as IL we'll and as wide as church
door. No man who has been wounded
Ike that ever survives more than a
minute.
That man in the museum is alleged
to be- Charles B. Nelson, who was
mystcriously shot one evening last
summer while in the company Of Mrs.
Edith Marguerite Staples in Washing
ton park. The shooting occurred on
the night Of July 1, Eve months ago,
and the man with an ounce of lead in
his heart is still alive Whether he
sleeps well and has good appetite l
am unable to say. He was formerly.
cyclst Of some note. Nelson s
breast was subjected to the X-rays,
and according to sciographs, which
we're made at the time, the bullet
lodged in the, septuGi of the heart
the fourfold PARTITION of muscular
fibre that divides the interior of that
organ into right and left auricles and
ventriccs. There it has continued to
throb up and down about 1000
times day ever since that mysterious
shooting, aud at every pulsation re-
futing the old theory Of medical
science that the touch Of hostile metal
to man heart brings death.
The most skilfnl and daring sur
geon on earth, if he were asked to re-
move the bullet from Nelson heart,
would shake his head IN the negative.
So this man must carry his leaden
handicap as long as life shall Last.
Seems strange, doesn't it !? In the
sciograph views which were. made Of
Nelson's wound the shadow Of the
bullet appears almost exactly in the
centre of the thorax, midway between
the ends Of the fourth pair of ribs.
Ia the profile view OF the thorax the
location Of the black spot shows shat
the bullet penetrated two and half
inches of cartilage and muscle before
twas stopped. AT the point where
it entered the thorax the pericardium,
which incloses the heart, touches the
sternum, itself less than an inch in
thickness; SO that surgeons claim the
other inch and a half Of the bullets
path was ploughed through the fibres
Of the heart. The exact injury in-
aicted upon the heart, however, is
still an open question, which will
only be determined satisfactorily to
science by AN autopsy. Il has been
argued h:9::.. he !:::!: = 80 !. *
spent ball, which pierced the pericar-
dunn and dropped, in which case the
muscular tissues Of the heart were not
lacerated or wounded.
And yet, Notwithstanding what i
have said, we have surgeons nowadays
who do undertake and carry: to a sue
cessful conclusion operations on the
heart. This Is done by opening the
pcricardiun, for example, in cases Of
drcpsy Of the heart, and drawing off
the fluid by aspiration. A man may.
have his heart pnnctured with the
point Of a knife Or . needle and still
recover from The injury. il used to
be held that wounds Of this character
were invarsaf,].s Il, tthi iN Ritt :, sv.,,tud