“DEAD” MAN REVIVED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22269, 23 May 1934, Page 10

“DEAD” MAN REVIVED

RESULT OF HEART MASSAGE SURVIVAL FOR TWENTY-FIVE HOURS The extraordinary case of a man who died under an ancestbetic, but bad bis heart massaged and returned to life for more than a day, was disclosed at an inquest at Nottingham last month. The man was Frederick Wolfe, aged 65, who was to be operated on at the Bagthorpe Infirmary for the relief of cancer in the mouth. He was to have been treated by the insertion of needles of radium. _ , „ , . ~ At the inquest, Dr A. H. Johns said that they had to abandon the operation because respiration ceased. “It was at about 11.15 a.m. when his breathing ceased, and then his heart stopped beating,” said the doctor. “We massaged the heart by opening the stomach, and after about five minutes the heart commenced beating again , and breathing restarted. Wolfe died about 12.15 p.m.” The coroner: He died and recovered again then?—Yes; that is what it amounts to. He died about 25 hours after the heart first stopped beating. A PERIOD OF DEATH.

Mr V. Lewis, representing the Health Department: Is 25 hours a long period for a patient to be kept alive after his heart has first stopped beating and restarted? —It is. There is on-record a longer period. ■ The coroner: It is quite exceptional. Mr Lewis: The man was actually dead at one time? The doctor: Yes. The coroner recorded a verdict that Wolfe died from oedema of the lungs and heart failure from a fatty heart, accelerated by an ancesthetic properly administered for an operation for the relief of a cancer on the. mouth. The case (says the London Daily Telegraph) recalls that of a woman who was restored to life last year at St. George’s Hospital, London. The woman “died” during the operation in similar circumstances to Mr Wolfe. Her heart and respiration ceased, and she was, in fact, dead. Similar measures were taken to those described at the inquest. She left hospital cured, and was never told that science had restored her to life.

The Bagthorpe Jnfirmary authorities had had every hope that Mr Wolfe would make a complete -recovery, and would, in fact, be well enough to undergo the operation before leaving hospital. “It is routine treatment in the modern operating theatre,” a medical authority said. “ When a collapse occurs, these measures are adopted, and there are probably many cases in which success has been achieved and the facts have not been made known. “In the ease of Mr Wolfe, had be recovered, the doctors and nurses at the hospital would probably have guarded the secret. It would obviously be unwise to tell a patient what had occurred, when he might be called upon to undergo other operations in future.”