DEAD HEARTS BEAT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 101, 15 May 1937, Page 11

DEAD HEARTS BEAT

A Doctor's Invention

L Doctor Albert S. Hyman, inventor of the artificial heart-pa.cer has demonstrated that the heart has two stages of death, reports Henry Kobinson in The American Mercury. The first, lasting for '90 seconds, is a peridd during which it can be revived by priclcing it with tho needle of the heartpacer, After tho first 90 seconds there develops in the dying heart a second period lasting up to IS.minutes during whieh reactivation may bo possible. • - * * ' ' . Dozens of .persons who have been given up for dead by relatives and physicians have been reanimated by thc use of this uew electrified "life flashlight."- The instrument is beyond the experimental stage. Quite siniply, .the principle underlying the artificial heart-paeer is an eleetrieal energy ordinarily generated by the heart itself. In a series of experiments, Dr. Hyman diseovered the exaet type of - electricity necessary, and, found that 1/1000 of a'volt'was sufficient. His next'prbblem was that of delivering the current to the sinus node, or group of cells which develop this electric current in the body that eauses the heart ,to beat. This he did with a 19-gauge gold injecting needle, about 4$ inches long. The first case to present itself after the 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" f roin which it did not recover. • Injections of adrenalin- were unavailing. The heart" stopped, After five minutes tle ph^sicians abandoned hope of reviving tho paticnt. Preparations were being made to remove the body wlien an interne suggeste.d. the

use of Dr. Hyman 's new heart-pacer, which was in the laboratory downstairs where the doetor was experimenting oa some animals. Dr. Hyman was summoned and arrived eight minutes after the patient had been pronounced deadT Taldng aseptic prccautions, Dr. Hymaa plunged tho gold needle into tho inter-" spaco of the dead man's third and fonrth xibs, on, the right side' of thc breastbone, penetrating the stilled heart to its hoclal core. As if by magic the dead heart commenced to beat, the colour * returned tqf the paticnt 'sfacc, and he manifested sign* of being very much alive. He was rndeo'd alive and Temained ,so for several d'aya. But pneumonia*had fatally weakened him • and-lie succumbed at last to the disease. As the figures stand to-day, the heart-pacer has obtained favourable results in oue 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 £2400. In 1931 it had been reduced to the siza of a small suitcase 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 £10. It is still too early for fmal determination to be made, but conservative medieal opinion agrees that during the few precious moments that elapse between the initial cOllapse .and the descent of ultimate death the paeemaker may be employed, rationally and hopefully, to resuscitate many human beings formeriy given up for dead.