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Rupture of the Heart after Myocardial Infarction

List of authors.
  • John F. Maher, M.D.,
  • G. Kenneth Mallory, M.D.,
  • and Gustave A. Laurenz, M.D.§

CARDIAC rupture with hemorrhage into the pericardium has long been recognized as a dramatic and rapidly fatal complication of myocardial infarction. Despite its invariably fatal termination, rupture of the heart has attracted the interest of physicians since its original description by Harvey1 in 1647.At the Mallory Institute, the pathological department of the Boston City Hospital, interest in this subject was renewed by the observation of several cases of cardiac rupture in rapid succession. This suggested an increased frequency of this complication and presented the possibility that newly introduced methods of therapy favor cardiorrhexis.It was thus considered that a . . .

Funding and Disclosures

* From the Mallory Institute of Pathology, Boston City Hospital.

We are indebted to Dr. Harold Yuker, of Hofstra College, Hempstead, New York, for his co-operation and advice in the statistical aspects of this investigation.

Author Affiliations

BOSTON

†Resident in medicine, Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, D. C.

‡Professor of pathology, Boston University School of Medicine; lecturer on pathology, Harvard Medical School; director, Mallory Institute of Pathology, and pathologist-in-chief, Boston City Hospital.

§Assistant resident in medicine, First (Columbia) Medical Division, Bellevue Medical Center, New York City.

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