To the Editor:
The paper by Dr. Allen Weisse regarding the history of cardiac surgery1 was entertaining and informative. He did fail to mention the first successful repair of a wound to the heart in the United States. Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill, Jr., was a surgeon in Montgomery, Alabama.2 He earned medical degrees from the University of New York in 1881 and Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1882. His further studies at the New York Polyclinic Medical School & Hospital were followed by a surgical apprenticeship with Dr. Joseph Lister at King's College Hospital in London. Dr. Hill returned to Alabama and established a surgical practice in Montgomery in 1884.
Dr. Hill had developed an interest in cardiac wounds during his training and early career. In 1900, he published “Wounds of the Heart with a Report of Seventeen Cases of Heart Suture” in the New York Medical Record. His extensive study of the subject established him as an authority.
On 15 September 1902, Dr. Hill—as the local expert—was asked by two Montgomery physicians to see Henry Myrick, a 13-year-old boy who had sustained a stab wound to the left side of the chest.3 Hill found young Myrick conscious, but bleeding from his wound and with a fading pulse. Using the kitchen table, illumination from a lantern, and chloroform anesthesia, he proceeded to operate on the victim. Dr. Hill was assisted by his brother Robert, also a physician. In a 45-minute procedure, he opened the left side of the chest, extended the pericardial laceration, and repaired the wound to the left ventricle with catgut suture. The patient recovered uneventfully from the operation. Dr. Hill became the first American surgeon to perform a successful cardiorrhaphy, and possibly the first surgeon to successfully repair a wound to the left ventricle.
Dr. Hill documented the procedure in “A Report of a Case of Successful Suturing of the Heart,” published in the November 1902 issue of the New York Medical Record. The case was also widely publicized in newspapers, including the New York Sun. He later wrote a chapter regarding heart wounds for the Reference Handbook of Medical Sciences. Dr. Hill retired from an illustrious surgical career in 1931 and died in Montgomery, at age 84, on 4 April 1946.
James C. Gilmore, MD
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Magnolia Regional Health Center, Corinth, Mississippi
Footnotes
Letters to the Editor should be no longer than 2 double-spaced typewritten pages and should generally contain no more than 6 references. They should be signed, with the expectation that the letters will be published if appropriate. The right to edit all correspondence in accordance with Journal style is reserved by the editors.
References
- 1.Weisse AB. Cardiac surgery: a century of progress. Tex Heart Inst J 2011;38(5):486–90. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- 2.UAB Archives. Brief overview of collection, MC56 [Internet]. Birmingham (AL): The University of Alabama Board of Trustees. Available from: http://www.uab.edu/archives./collections/manu-coll/74-mc56 [updated 1999 Jul 7; cited 2011 Nov 8].
- 3.Foster R. Luther Leonidas Hill Jr. Encyclopedia of Alabama [Internet]. Available from: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2949 [updated 2011 Jan 25; cited 2011 Nov 8].