MACHINE WHICH DEFEATS DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 22685, 26 June 1937, Page 20

MACHINE WHICH DEFEATS DEATH

Dr Albert S. Hyman, inventor of the artificial heart-paoer, has demonstrated that the heart has two stages of death, writes Henry Robinson, in the ‘American Mercury.’ The first, lasting for 90sec, is a period during which it can be revived by pricking it with the needle of the heart-pacer. After the first 90sec there develops in the dying heart a second period lasting up to 15min during which reactivation may be possible. Dozens of persons who have been given up for dead by relatives and physicians have been reanimated by the use of this new electrified “ life flashlight.” The instrument is beyond the experimental stage. Quite simply, the principle underlying the artificial heart-pacer is an electrical energy ordinarily generated by the heart itself. In' a series of experiments, Dr Hyman discovered the exact type of electricity necessary, and found that 1-1,000 of a volt was sufficient. His next problem was that of delivering the current to thp' sinus node, or group of cells which develop this electric current in the ■body that, causes' the heart to beat. This he did with a 19-gauge gold injecting needle, about 4iin long. 1 The first case to present itself after tins laboratory experiments was that of a middle-aged man suffering from pneumonia, who underwent an operation to have the pus drained from his pleural cavity. As frequently happens after this operation the heart “went into a flutter ”, from which it did not recover. Injections of adrenalin were unavailing. The heart stopped. After five minutes the physicians abandoned hope of reviving the patient. Preparations were being made to remove the body when an interne suggested * the use of Dr Hyman’s new heart-pacer, which was in the laboratory downstairs where the doctor was experimenting on some animals. Dr Hyman was summoned, and ' arrived eight minutes after the patient had been pronounced dead. Taking ascoptic precautions, Dr Hyman plunged the gold needle into the interspace of . the dead man’s third and fourth ribs, on the right side of the breastbone, penetrating the stilled heart to its nodal core. As if by magic the dead heart commenced to beat, the colour returned to the patient’s face, and he manifested signs of being very much alive. He was indeed alive, ami remained so for several days. Rut pneumonia had fatally weakened him, and he succumbed at last fo the disease. As the figures stand today, the heart-paoer has obtained favourable results in one out of every four attempts. Originally the machine was a large and complicated piece of laboratory equipment weighing 90 pounds and taking up as much space as a kitchen

table. Its approximate cost was £2,400. In 1931 it had been reduced to the size of a small suit case, and weighed 40 pounds. Three years later a model was devised no bigger than a cigar box. Finally, in 1936, Dr Hyman perfected a pace-maker which is only six inches long and weighs less than a pound and costs £lO. It is still too early for final determination to be made, but conservative medical opinion agrees that during tho few precious moments that elapse between the initial collapse and the descent of ultimate death the pace-maker may be employed, rationally and hopefully, to resuscitate many human beings formerly given up for dead.