Callender mentions
recovery of the patient after removal of a needle from the heart.
Garangeot mentions an aged Jesuit of seventy-two, who had in the
substance of his heart a bone 4 1/2 inches long and possibly an
inch thick. This case is probably one of ossification of the
cardiac muscle; in the same connection Battolini says that the
heart of Pope Urban VII contained a bone shaped like the Arab T.
Among the older writers we frequently read of hairs, worms, and
snakes being found in the cavities of the heart. The Ephemerides,
Zacutus Lusitanus, Pare, Swinger, Riverius, and Senac are among
the authorities who mention this circumstance. The deception was
possibly due to the presence of loose and shaggy membrane
attached to the endocardial lining of the heart, or in some cases
to echinococci or trichine. A strange case of foreign body in the
heart was reported some time since in England. The patient had
swallowed a thorn of the Prunus spinosa (Linn.), which had
penetrated the esophagus and the pericardium and entered the
heart. A postmortem examination one year afterward confirmed
this, as a contracted cicatrix was plainly visible on the
posterior surface of the heart about an inch above the apex,
through which the thorn had penetrated the right ventricle and
lodged in the tricuspid valve.
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