HEART OPERATIONS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1903

HEART OPERATIONS.

THE Philadelphia Medical Journal calls attention to a table of thirty-four cases of heart surgery which have been operated upon since 1896. During that year there were three operations; in 1897, two; in 1898, four; in 1899, eleven; in 1900, three; in 1901, nine. During the present year two cases have already been reported. The wounds in all but two of the cases were punctured or incised wounds. In thirty-two instances the ventricles were injured,—the left ventricle seventeen times and the right thirteen times. The right and left auricles were each injured once. But three of the operators employed catgut, and in most of the instances an uninterrupted suture was used. In seven instances the pericardium and pleura alone were drained. In most of the cases it is said that the wounds were closed without drainage, or the matter is not mentioned. Of the thirty-four cases reported five died on the operating table of hemorrhage, and ten died soon afterward from the effects of hemorrhage or from shock. Of the remaining cases thirteen recovered and six died.