254 The Grizzly Bear 



"Balch(i77i) had a patient with a rifle ball in the heart 

 who fully recovered in six weeks and lived eighteen years. 



"Hally (1878) had a case of a rifle ball in the heart 

 where the man lived fifty-five days; then death was caused 

 by working in the field. 



"Dudley (1882) had a patient with a pistol ball in 

 the heart who lived four days. 



"Ferris (1882) reports a case of a man living twenty 

 days with a skewer completely traversing the heart." 



So we might go on and show more cases where heart 

 shots have failed to kill at once. But a shot through the 

 upper portion of the heart, severing all the large blood- 

 vessels, produces instant collapse in most cases, and death 

 within a few seconds always. The doctor explained these 

 facts by saying that if an animal collapses at once from a 

 shot in the ventricle or lower portion of the heart it is 

 from the shock. Otherwise death only results from the 

 comparatively gradual filling of the pericardial cavity, 

 and the consequent smothering of the heart's beating in 

 its own blood. The shattering of the auricle or upper 

 portion of the heart, on the other hand, not only severs 

 the large blood-vessels and almost instantly floods the 

 pericardium, but paralyzes the heart's action at its source, 

 since the impulse of this action starts in the auricle. 



Of course no statement made in regard to a wound 

 has any scientific value unless the wound was carefully 

 dissected out after death. And no statement has any 

 value whatever when it relates to wounds inflicted on an 

 animal that escaped. I have already drawn attention 

 to the liability to mistake inherent in this kind of a report 

 in the case of Jack and the charging grizzly. 



