SM

08 - Heart: Rupture of fatty heart

Enlarge Descriptive Card Log Book Entry

Rodin Number: 22
E Number: 143
Donor: Burland and Osler
Date: 1880
Size (H x W cm): 18.5 x 12

The specimen shows a tear in the anterior surface of the left ventricle (arrow, glass rod (A)), most likely secondary to an underlying myocardial infarct and resulting in pericardial tamponade and death.

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Comment

The white material on the epicardial surface is fat (hence the descriptive card specimen title) altered over time by fixation. The patient was a 60 year-old man who experienced “sudden faintness” and died 14 hours later. William H Burland was House Surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital in 1877-78. Autopsy 439 was documented in one of Osler’s missing books.

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