The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-01-18
n VITAL SPOT NOW.
,.o,,uOs OF HEART AND BRAIN IRA, THAT
w0O' LAVE FAILED TO KILL

~ Their Brains and s'r'''s'
... In Treating such Cases.
80, my own part, y said the doctor,
fO' .hrug II would prefer not to be
Win al whether in the heart, head
' SHOT a. liver or brain, and yet have We
lungs "oto Of many cases recently IN
taEep n uorsops have sustained gunshot
when p' 81 supposedly fatal character
wounus still alive and going about their
business. na his COMPANION were
ln0 down town museum when the
pasSine a,;ou took this turn. Among
cou, us niotured and caricatured In
the ie g tba building was a man with a
llO ~nod bullet wound torn through DIS
ragS.u which organ was wildly exposed
nea .So caring daub-while the angel OF
III Wv S ,ras lowering over him. ready to
u0as w him away at any moment
'na "Tben, !" said the doctors friend "a
10, ~ a stab in the heart is not neces-
s 'a fatal as it is understood py mod
''a mot at ALL" returned the doctor.
.pnt Of course, we are not speaking OF
D as big and terrible as the one
" MO .hot museum picture. That is appar-
Aus " even worse than the thrust re-
e 'n;rod nv Mercutio-looks about as deep
va we'll and as wide as church door.
No man who has been wounded ike
.hat aver survives more than a minute.
mTbat man in the museum is alleged
:. no Charles b. Nelson, who was mys-
.Oriouslv shot one evening while in the
compapy of Mrs. Edith Marguerite Sta
Mas in Washington park. The shooting
ppocurred on night five months ago,
J and the man with an ounce OF lead In
his heart is still alive Whether he
slosps we'll aud has good appetite l
am unable to say. He was formerly a
cvclist of some note. Nelson's breast
was subjected to the X rays, and, ao-
cording to sciographs which were made
at the time, the bullet lodged in the
septum Of the heart--the fourfold par
tition of muscular fiber that divides the
interior of that organ into right and left
ARTICLES and ventricles. There 1t has
continued to throb up and down about
100 900 times day ever since that mys-
terious shooting, and at every pulsation
refuting the old theory of medical sci
ence that the touch of hostile metal to
mans heart brings death.
"The most skillful and daring sur
econ ON earth, if he were asked to re-
move the bullet from Nelson's heart,
would shake his head in the negative.
So this man must carry his leaden ham
I. dicap as long as life shall last. Seems
strange, doesn't it?
"And yet, Notwithstanding what
have said, we have surgeons nowadays
who do undertake and carry to sue
cessful conclusion operations on the
heart. This is done by opening the peri
oardium, for example. in cases Of drop
sy of the heart, and drawing off the
fluid by aspiration. A man may have
bis heart punctured with the point of q
knife or a needle and still recover from
the injury. 1t used to be held that
wounds of this character were invaria-
bly, fatal But wound of the heart il
not necessarily fatal, as is shown in the
case where q needle was removed by
Calender from the substance OF that
organ. Cases of like nature have been
reported by Drs. Hahn. Agnew. Stelz.
ner and others. More than 90 cases
where rupture Of the heart walls did
not result i'll immediate death are re-
ported by DR.. ID. j. Hamilton, well
known Scotch surgeon and pathologist.
THE case of Poole, prizefghter,
was one of the most remarkable. Poole
was shot in the heart while engaged in
an encounter with man named Baker
In New Jersey, in 1855. To al outward
appearance he recovered rapidly and in
four days felt SO we'll that he expressed
wish to finish the interrupted contest
Twelve days later, however, he sudden
" dropped to the ground. Within Eve
minutes he was dead.
More remarkable still. perhaps, are
the numerous injuries to the brain and
spinal cord, which on first view would
DC pronounced fatal and yet from which
the wounded persons recover. At Val
Paraiso Ind. a man named Herbert j.
tish while in a fit of temporary insan
i'y put .3S caliber bullet through hi,
orain' and at last accounts he was still
awe and apparently getting well. The
Juliet by all accounts, passed through
'ne right and left anterior hemisphere
ol the brain, lodging finally in the pos
,erior bone wall Of the left eye socket.
~ It's course the ball destroyed large
amount OF brain matter. At the sam,
,lme 1t cut the optic nerves of both eyes
destroying the sight. In some way tn,
sense OF smell, too, was destroyed.
Many Chicagoans will remember
uaeeoy at the Briggs House in this city
several years ago. in which a man VIII,
WAS mas snot in the brain got well. ]. 8
mcDonnell, a we'll known veterinary
surgeon, and his wife were boarders a
sae motel. 1t was in August, 1887. On,
asy .here was a great uproar and excite
s a'ens over shooting ARRAY in the apart
s -sl.s OF the MoDonnells. In the quar-
-, e Mcdonnell was shot by his wife, tn,
yuiiet entering the side Of his head II
sne parletal bona ahoua xho oa- ell ,,a,,