Foreign body in the heart muscle

Hunter, Staub and Lunsford (Arch, of path. A. Lab. Med., Vol. 6, No. 5, 1928) observed a case when a patient with depressive-manic psychosis for the purpose of suicide introduced through the skin of the sixth intercostal space along the left nipple line an aluminum tube from the mouthpiece, 8.9 cm long, and 4 mm in diameter. Within two days, there were no subjective or objective symptoms, and only starting from the third day there was a moderate increase in temperature and an increase in pulse and respiration, which lasted until death, which occurred only on the 9th day, suddenly for 10 with the phenomena of sharp cyanosis , increased heart rate and respiration. An intravital X-ray examination did not reveal any foreign body in either the chest cavity or the heart. An autopsy showed that the tube passed over the apex of the heart through the wall of the left ventricle into its cavity and from there, through the posterior wall, entered into the left lung. There was a slight hemorrhage in the cardiac shirt and fresh fibrinous pericarditis. The authors explain the negative X-ray study by the light permeability of aluminum for all rays, with the exception of the shortest X-rays.