Figure 143 shows such a case.
The Heart.--Absence of the heart has never been recorded in human
beings except in the case of monsters, as, for example, the
omphalosites, although there was a case reported and firmly
believed by the ancient authors,--a Roman soldier in whom
Telasius said he could discover no vestige of a heart.
The absence of one ventricle has been recorded. Schenck has seen
the left ventricle deficient, and the Ephemerides, Behr, and
Kerckring speak of a single ventricle only in the heart. Riolan
mentions a heart in which both ventricles were absent. Jurgens
reported in Berlin, February 1, 1882, an autopsy on a child who
had lived some days after birth, in which the left ventricle of
the heart was found completely absent. Playfair showed the heart
of a child which had lived nine months in which one ventricle was
absent. In King's College Hospital in London there is a heart of
a boy of thirteen in which the cavities consist of a single
ventricle and a single auricle.
Duplication of the heart, notwithstanding the number of cases
reported, has been admitted with the greatest reserve by
Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire and by a number of authors. Among the
celebrated anatomists who describe duplex heart are Littre,
Meckel, Collomb, Panum, Behr, Paullini, Rhodins, Winslow, and
Zacutus Lusitanus.
Pages:
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565