Medicine: Eggshell Heart

The boy was 18, but he looked like a child of nine. He weighed only 75 Ibs.; he was only 4 ft. 6 in. tall. His ankles and abdomen were bloated. His heart beat so faintly that it could scarcely be detected. At Detroit's Art Center (osteopathic) Hospital, Surgeon Albert Collum Johnson guessed that the boy's heart was in some kind of strait jacket. His guess was right.

He operated, found a calcium shell an eighth of an inch thick enclosing the heart sac. This heart shell had to be cracked apart with forceps. Apparently the result of internal bleeding caused by...

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