A SURGICAL TRIUMPH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2436, 26 February 1909, Page 5

A SURGICAL TRIUMPH.

STITCHING A MAN’S HEART

Mqch Interest- has been caused by tho operation of stitching up the heart of a Leeds (England), butcher, who was accidentally stabbed. The butcher, a young man named Edgar Greenwood, was “larking” with another man named John William Riggs in a butcher’s shop, when a knife that Rigg 'held entered Greenwood’s body and pierced the heart. Greenwood was at once removed to the infirmary, where, it was decided that in order to save the. man’s life it-would bo necessary to stitch the wound in the heart. The heart was-laid bare, and three stitches -were rapidly and carefully put in. The operation concluded 'without mishap. Later on Greenwood was going on very well so far as the injury t-o the 'heart was concerned, and the doctors’ only fear was that other compilations may prove fatal. “Until a very few years ago,” said a London surgeon, “any wound of the heart * muscle was considered fatal, and no doubt, many people died because doctors were afraid to operate. Nowadays the heart is handled and sewn up like an;* other organ that lias been injured. “In a recent- case a man was brought into my hospital with a large revolver-shot wound over the heart. Although apparently at the point of death the heart was exposed, a bullet found embedded in the thick flesh of. the apex was removed, and the] wound was stitched up. The man recovered.”