Exposed Heart

A Michigan trapper named St. Martin was shot in the stomach in 1822. The accident proved good fortune to Medicine. For Dr. William Beaumont, young Army surgeon, succeeded in healing the wound, except for a clean hole three inches in diameter. Through that hole Dr. Beaumont was able to study the processes of human digestion for the many years which St. Martin continued to live.

Last week at Little Rock, Ark., Medicine had a chance comparable to the famed St. Martin case. Marie Overby, 9, and her mother had been motoring near the city. Their car became entangled in a fallen high-power transmission line. Mrs. Overby was electrocuted. Rescuers rushed Marie to Little Rock where hospital attendants discovered a nine-inch hole burned through her left chest wall. Flesh, ribs and pleura were gone. The left lung had collapsed. But her heart was beating strongly. She said she felt no pain. There was no possible hope of saving her. So the doctors, mindful of the professional value of an exposed heart action, dragged in a moving picture camera, photographed the puzzled little girl's viscera the 14 hours she continued to live.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.