Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1881 — Wounds of the Heart. [ARTICLE]

Wounds of the Heart.

It is generally supposed that wounds of the heart kill immediately, and a correspondent has sent to use a stag’s heart with the left auricle practically annihilated and the upper half the left ventricle torn completely through by a bullet; so that three fingers can be readily passed through the wound into the cavity. Notwithstanding the extent of the injury, “ the stag ran about sixty yards, the first ten yards up hill.” The fact is that wounds of the heart are but seldom immediately fatal, if ever so. We know of no case of absolutely instantaneous death from a wound of the heart, in any part or however extensive. The experience in the battle-field corresponds with that of the sportsman, who never saw a deer shot through the heart that did not run some distance. Wounds of the apex kill comparatively slowly, in from one hour upward ; and in one case mentioned by John Bell, in which the apex was completely severed from the rest of the organ by a sword cut, the man lived twelve hours. Indeed, out of twentynine collected cases of injury to the heart, only two were fatal within fortyeight hours, and in the others' death resulted in periods varying from four to twenty-eight days. Recovery may take place even when the wound is extensive, for a bullet has been found imbeded in the substance of the heart after a lapse of six years from the date of the injury, the patient having died from a disease of an organ in no way connected with the lesion. Some little time elapses before the blood wholly escapes from or fails to enter the cavities, and the walls continue to contract and propel some of it into the vessels for a much longer period than is usually thought to be the case.— Lancet, The King of Denmark is .truly a paternal monarch. Finding that during the recent seme weather the royal foot guards were suffering greatly from Coaid and Coughs,-this good Did gentleman ordered a supply of Dr. Bull’s Cough Syrup for them, and now the sentries tre happy,