Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury [Connecticut]) 1903-1917, 1908-04-06
sew UP MANS HEART
Yonkers Surgeons Take Three
Stitches In Injured Organ.
REMOVE IT FOR OPERATION.
Pierced by Knife Wound, Seat of Life
Is Lifted From Patients Bosom,
Stitched and RepIaeed-Blood Poi
soning Doctors Chief Dread.

Yonkers, N. Y, April 6.-With three
stitches in his heart, twelve stitches in
the pericardium, the bag which in
closes the heart, and two of his ribs
removed Robert Inglis, twenty three
years old, of 80 Palisade avenue is
making fight for life in st. Josephs
hospital. In an alteration in the street
with a Pole, Inglis was stabbed in the
heart with knife. The vitality of the
young man was so extraordinary that
he called out for the police to aid him
and to arrest his assailant, identified
his assailant after he had been arrest
blocks to the hospital, where he was
under ether two hours while the sur
geons operated on him. The surgeons
say they believe he will survive the
injury and the operation.
What they fear chiefly is blood poi
soning. Examination of the knife blade
which entered the heart of Inglis has
shown that it was not clean, and there
is danger septic matter may have been
carried into the wound.
Marvel at Mans Vitality.
Or. Edward F. Duffy, the hospital
surgeon, and DR.. Philip Mccormick,
both of Yonkers, who performed the
operation, are at loss to understand
how Inglis survived the wound and the
terrible shock which attended the sur
gical work of endeayoring to save his
life.
As soon as possible after the stabbing
Inglis was taken to the hospital. He
was rushed to the operating room and
etherized. The surgeons called several
nurses and got everything in readiness.
Then they laid back the flesh on the
left side and the chest. To get at the
heart it was necessary to cut out two
ribs and to remove part of the breast
bone. That they did Then they lift
ed out the heart, being careful to ham
die it so its beating would not be in
terrupted. Enlarging the hole which
Formansky's knife had made in the
bag inclosing the heart, they lifted the
pulsating and bleeding organ out and
examined it quickly.
Stitch Heart Between Beats.
The discovery was made that For
mansky's blade had sunk down into the
left auricle Of the heart Antiseptic
solutions were used freely, and then
the work Of sewing up the wound in
the heart was begun. Drs. Duffy and
Mccormick selected the best strands
of catgut they could find, and between
heartbeats they put in the three
stitches.
Encouraged by the success which at
tended that part of the operation, the
doctors replaced the heart carefully in
the pericardium and sewed that bag
up with twelve stitches. Then the
heart was restored to Its normal place,
and it went on with its work of pump
ing blood through the body of Inglis
while the surgeons busted themselves
placing drainage tubes and closing the
incisions In the side and the breast.
They were not sure Inglis would re-
spond to restoratives and were over.
joyed when he came out of the ether
and asked if the operation had been
performed. II is declared that if In.
glis should live through such an opera.
ton his would be one of the most re-
markable recoveries in the history Of
surgery.