Nick Carter Stories No. 146, June 26, 1915: Paying the Price; or, Nick Carter's Perilous VentureCarter, Nicholas (House name)
General
Nick Carter Stories No. 146, June 26, 1915: Paying the Price; or, Nick Carter's Perilous Venture
Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Detective and mystery stories, American -- Periodicals; Popular literature -- Periodicals
Several months ago Ziff cut himself badly while cutting up his wares,
and his wife and children begged him to give up his occupation and find
some other method of earning a living. He tried to do it, but he could
find nothing else. His pushcart was well known in the neighborhood, and
his business was good; so he was compelled to keep at it.
Business was brisk one night, and the coconuts were going fast. Ziff had
to cut up new ones from time to time, and every few minutes found him
bending over with his knife at work. Presently the thing he had always
feared happened; his knife slipped and cut through the left breast, a
deep wound.
Ziff knew he was badly hurt. So he straightened up, laid down his knife,
and started for the Beth Israel Hospital, about a block and a half away.
How he got there continues to be a mystery to the surgeons, but he did
get there. He walked into the office in Jefferson Street, near Cherry
Street, looking as if nothing much matter.
Doctor George Levy, who received him, saw that his injuries were
serious, and notified Doctor Alfred A. Schwartz, the house surgeon.
Doctor Schwartz’s examination disclosed a wound at least an inch and a
half long at the outer surface and going far down in.
Doctor Schwartz called up Doctor Charles Goodman, of 969 Madison Avenue,
the attending surgeon, and told him that he was badly needed at once.
Doctor Simon D. Ehrlich, the hospital’s anæsthetist, also was notified,
and Ziff was carried to the operating room. Here Doctor Schwartz packed
the wound with gauze and stopped the flow of blood, and everything was
made ready to start work when Doctor Goodman arrived.
The operating surgeon arrived in record time, and then began some quick
work. The flow of blood had to be stopped in the first place, and the
patient anæsthetized for the operation. But if the chest where cut open
to check the hemorrhage, the lungs would have collapsed from the air
pressure on the outside, so air had to be pumped in until the inflation
was sufficient to resist the pressure from without.
This process was combined with the application of the anæsthetic by the
method known as intertracheal anæsthesia. By means of an apparatus
operated by electricity, ether was mixed in a jar with air in the
proportion considered advisable, and the resultant mixture forced
through a tube far down into the patient’s throat. By this means
anæsthesia was produced and the air within the lungs was raised to
double the normal pressure.
With the patient anæsthetized and the lungs secured against danger of
collapse, Doctor Goodman cut away three ribs and a piece of the
breastbone. He found the chest full of blood, and this had to be drawn
off before anything more could be done. When the blood was cleared away,
Doctor Goodman found that the knife had made a big cut in the
pericardium and that the point had gone flown nearly three-eighths of an
inch into the heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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