The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-01-12
IS THERE NO VITAL SPOT?
Wounds in the Brain and Heart Which
Have Not Proved Fatal.
CHICAGO Tribune.

head, lungs, liver OF brain, and yet l
have taken note Of many cases recently
in which persons have sustained gun
shot wounds Of supposedly fatal char
acter, who are still alive and going
about their business.
The doctor and his companion were
passing O downtown museum when the
conversation took this turn. Among
the freaks pictured and caricatured In
front of the building was man with
a ragged bullet wound torn through
his heart-which organ was vlvldly
exposed in the Aaring daub-while the
angel of death was hoving over him
ready to snatch him away at any mo-
ment. The appeal to morbid amuse-
ment seekers was such as to lead to
the inference that the unfortunate
with the wound in his heart might
oblig;ngly drop dead at any minute,
for the special delectation Of those
who paid their dimes and walked in to
see him
Then, said the doctors friend,
ia shot. or stab in the heart is not
necessarily fatal, as it is understood
by modern surgery p
Not at all, returned the doctor.
ssBut Of course we are not speaking OF
wounds as big and terrible as the one
in that museum picture that is appa-
rently even worse than the thrust re-
ceiived by Mercutio-looks about as
deep as we'll and as wide as church
door. No man who has been wounded
like that ever survives more than
minute.
s.That man in the museum is alleged
to be Charles B. Nelson, who was
mysteriously 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 l, five months ago,
and the man with an ounce OF lead IN
his heart is still alive Whether he
sleeps we'll and has good appetite !
am unable to say. He was formerly
a cyclist Of some note. Nelson S
breast was subjected to the A-rays,
and according to sciographs, which
were made at the time, the bullet
lodged in the, septum of the heart
the fourfold partition Of muscular
fibre that divides the interior Of that
organ into right and left auricles aud
ventricles. There it has continued to
throb up and down about 100000
times day ever since that mysterious
shooting, and at every pllsation re-
futirg, the old theory of medical
science that the touch Of hostile metal
to a man heart brings death.
ssThe most skilful 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 tho fourth pair Of ribs.
In the profile view Of the thorax the
location of the black spot shows that
the bullet penetrated two and half
inches Of cartilage and muscle before
it was stopped At the point where
it entered the thorax the pericardlum,
which incloses the heart, touches the
sternum. itself less than an inch IN
thickness; so that surgeons claim the
other inch and half of the bullet S
path was ploughed through the flbres
of the heart. The exact injury IN
ficted upon the heart, however, Is
still an open question, which VIII
only be determined satisfactorily to
science by an autopsy. 1t has been
argued by some that the bullet was
spent ball, which pierced the pencar-
dium and dropped, in which case the
muscular tissues Of the heart were not
lacerated or wounded.
-sAnd 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
peNcardium. for example, in cases OF
drcpsy of the heart, and drawing OFT
the fluid by aspiration. A man may
have his heart punctured with the
noint of a knife or needle and still
recover from the injury. 1t used to
he held that wounds Of this character
were invariably fatal. But { wound
of +be heart is not necessarily fatal