RESTORATION OF LIFE

Southland Times, Issue 17877, 5 September 1918, Page 4

RESTORATION OF LIFE

COLLAPSE DURING OPERATION. HEART MASSAGE EFFECTIVE. REMARKABLE CASE IN AUCKLAND. The efficacy of heart massage for tha restoration of life in patients collapsing on the operating table is endorsed by Mr Carrick Robertson, of Auckland, in an article in the current issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal. ‘‘Although heart massage is fairly well known as a possible procedure,” he remarks, “I have not heard any personal reports of such cases, so I venture to think the record of these cases may be of interest to the profession in New Zealand.” Mr Robertson states that he has had several cases of heart massage during the last year or two, and he describes in detail a “striking example of its saving powers.” In this case, a sailor went to the Auckland Hospital with a septic thumb, but otherwise apparently in good health. He was placed under a general anaesthetic, and the abscess was lanced. It was then noticed that the patient’s heart had stopped beating, and the respirations were dying away. Artificial respiration was started, and Mr Robertson, who happened to be in the hospital at the time, was summoned. On arrival, he found that the man was quite white, and there were no heart sounds, neither had voluntary respiration been restored. The man seemed quite dead. Making the necessary surgical incision, Mr Robertson introduced his hand and grasped the heart firmly. Finding that there was no muscular movement in the heart, the surgeon squeezed it between his band and the ribs several times, whereupon it gave a distinct. but feeble, kick, followed by slow and feeble contractions, which soon became bounding and rapid. The wound was sewn up, and the patient put to bed. The patient remained in a very excited condition for 12 hours, but two days after the operation he was quite normal, but could not remember going to the hospital or anything that had happened during the two days. He made a complete recovery. The interest of the case, as Mr Robertson emphasises in his paper, lies particularly in the fact that at the lowest calculation the man must have been dead for three minutes, probably five. In an earlier case of heart massage performed by Mr Robertson the subject was a man on whom he was operating for appendicitis. This man did well, but the result was not so striking as in the case just described, for a very little time elapsed between his heart stopping and the massage which restarted it. In a third case in which this manoeuvre was tried Mr Robertson was unsuccessful.

“ It will be seen that heart massage adds another efficient method of dealing with cases of sudden collapse on the operating table,” Mr Robertson remarks in concluding the article. “ With the experiences recorded above I am firmly convinced that when the surgeon is sure that the heart has stopped there should be no excuse for not applying this procedure; but I should like to emphasise the fact that this should only be done after failure to restore animation with the usual restoratives, and, judging from the first case, it would seem that there is no great hurry, for the heart will respond after a comparatively long latent period.”