Lavender
mentions an incised wound of the heart penetrating the right
ventricle, from which the patient recovered. Purple gives, an
account of a recovery from a wound penetrating both ventricles.
The diagnosis was confirmed by a necropsy nine years thereafter.
Stoll records a nonfatal injury to the heart.
Mastin reports the case of a man of thirty-two who was shot by a
38-caliber Winchester, from an ambush, at a distance of 110
yards. The ball entered near the chest posteriorly on the left
side just below and to the outer angle of the scapula, passed
between the 7th and 8th ribs, and made its exit from the
intercostal space of the 4th and 5th ribs, 2 1/4 inches from the
nipple. A line drawn from the wound of entrance to that of exit
would pass exactly through the right ventricle. After receiving
the wound the man walked about twenty steps, and then, feeling
very weak from profuse hemorrhage from the front of the wound, he
sat down. With little or no treatment the wound closed and steady
improvement set in; the patient was discharged in three weeks. As
the man was still living at last reports, the exact amount of
damage done in the track of the bullet is not known, although
Mastin's supposition is that the heart was penetrated.
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