A NEEDLE IN THE HEART.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 448, 1 April 1875, Page 2

A NEEDLE IN THE HEART.

A little six-year-old daughter of Colonel J. D. Jeffres, whose residence is at 1,010 Washington ■treet, died recently in a very painful and curious manner. The little one was playing: at sewing. Some noise on the street made her run to the window, and, in true housewifely style, she stuck the needle in the bosom of her dress for safe keeping. In leaning over the sill her weight drove the nsedle into her brenst, immediately over the heart. The child screamed, and in her efforts to draw the needle out broke it off short. Dr Charles McQuesten was called as soon, as possible. The messenger was not sufficiently intelligent to explain the trouble, and the doctor, thinking it some ordinary childish complaint, took with him no surgical instruments. This occasioned a delay of half an hour, as the physician had to return to his office. He put the child under the influence of chloroform. Search was made for the fragment x>f steel. The breast was laid open to the bone immediately over the wound. Part of the needle was found in the bone, but the struggle of the little one had broken off the point, which had penetrated' the cavity of the chest and was thus beyond the reach of the surgeon's knife. It was hoped that the bit of steel would not penetrate the heart but find its way into the circulation and out, as has so often happened in similar cases. The child did not appeal* to suffer greatly, and the fears of the parents were almost allayed. On the Sunday, when Mrs Jeffress returned from church, Viola ran to meet her quite gaily and in apparent good health. The next moment, however, the child was seized with a vomiting lit, and in less than an hour was dead. Dr McQuesten, in company with Dr Bird, made a post mortem examination and found that the needle-point had penetrated the right ventricle of the heart, thus causing death. The poor child had frequently complained of great pain as she breathed,, and her sufferings from the constant irritation must have been intense.