Note 23 — Chapter XXIX · SURGICAL DISEASES OF THE HEART AND VASCULAR SYSTEM.

Illustrating the surgery of foreign bodies in the heart, Jordan has reported the case of a young woman who stated that she had received a blow on the front of the chest the previous day, and showed on examination a small projecting point in the lower part of the third left intercostal space about half an inch from the sternum, which was tender to the touch and seemed to move or pulsate with the heart. It gave to the finger the sensation of a hard substance beneath the skin without any external marking. Upon making an incision and dissecting partly through the muscle the broken end of a black steel pin came into view. After removal with forceps it proved to be a shawl pin, one and one half inches long, with its glass head broken off. The patient remembered having had such a pin in her bosom at the time of the accident. On the following day she had pericarditis. She apparently recovered, but had a relapse, and died on the twenty-fourth day, the autopsy showing pericarditis.