The surprises that the human body can present never cease to amaze scientists and doctors. One of these amazing phenomena is people … with two hearts. At the same time, some of them for a long time do not even know about their own uniqueness, since they have good health and do not seek help from doctors …
But why and how does this happen?
Additional heart to the third leg
In 1905. a strange announcement appeared in American newspapers: a certain Durr, a carpenter by profession, wrote that he had two hearts and would bequeath his body to the one who would pay big money for it. Several experts examined Durr and unanimously stated that the man actually had two hearts and that he was completely healthy. A group of doctors offered the carpenter ten thousand dollars for an operation to remove one heart while alive. However, the unique man refused, prudently fearing the consequences of such a surgical intervention.
Even more shocking is the story of George Lippert, who was born in Germany in 1844. This famous man had three legs. Lippert performed in the circus of Phineas Taylor Barnum, the largest American mystifier, along with other very unusual people (for example, the Russian boy Fyodor Evtishchev, whose overgrown face resembled a dog's face). Only in 1906, when Lippert died, an autopsy of his body revealed that he also had two hearts in his chest. No one, including George himself, ever suspected this.
There is evidence that a similar person lived in Russia: rural paramedic Vladimir Ognivtsev also had two hearts. This was reported in a reference book on surgery published in Yekaterinburg (1911), there was also a diagram showing the movement of blood in Ognivtsev's body.
Promotional video:
Both hearts beat in unison
The medical technology evolving over time has made it possible to “find” a number of people with two hearts. So, in 1967. in a Yugoslav school, during a regular medical examination, a second heart was found in a student of Ramo Osmani; it was on the right and had the shape of a mirror image of the first heart. X-ray examination showed that both organs are smaller than they should be at this age, but their clear joint work ensures good blood circulation. Outwardly, the boy looked even healthier and stronger than his peers.
Ramo Osmani has long been an adult man, but he is regularly examined by doctors. In everything that does not concern two hearts, Rameau is not too different from ordinary people. True, he is somewhat more enduring, although he also needs rest.
In 2004. the phenomenon of two hearts was found in a one-year-old Georgian boy, and a few years later in a fifty-year-old Ukrainian. It is striking that the baby from Georgia had a second heart in the abdominal cavity, but together both organs functioned normally.
At the beginning of 2004. a number of Russian newspapers published the news about a 47-year-old resident of Ingushetia, Ziaudin Yandiev, who also had two hearts. The man rarely went to doctors, although he once served in the army, and therefore underwent a medical examination. However, then the doctors did not notice the amazing anomaly, because they applied a stethoscope, as expected, to the left side of the chest and did not suspect that the heart they were listening to was not the only one in Ziaudin. At the end of 1999. trouble happened to the man - blood poisoning. In a hospital in the city of Nalchik, the doctor noticed that when the cardiogram was taken, one electrode sharply moved to the right side. Thus, doctors discovered two hearts in their patient. After Ziaudin was cured, the doctors carried out a complete examination of his body and did not reveal any other pathologies.
In 2004. Yandiev suffered a heart attack in both hearts and was hospitalized. The man recovered quite quickly, but the doctors commenting on this event in the press stated that a simultaneous heart attack suggests that two hearts in the body work as one, making up a single system.
Stabilization of the work of the dear heart
In 2010. an elderly man was brought to the emergency department of Verona (Italy). For reasons of medical secrecy, his name and surname were hidden from the media. This man was found on the street unconscious, with low blood pressure and shortness of breath. Suspecting a heart attack, the doctors performed appropriate drug therapy.
On examination, the man was found to have two hearts. The choice of medication had the opposite effect, causing both of the patient's hearts to stop. Fortunately, the doctors made them beat again with a defibrillator. After some time, the man recovered and left the clinic.
As it turned out, the second heart of an unusual patient was donor and had served him for several years. The transplanted organ took root well and stabilized the work and condition of the man's "native" heart. An incorrectly administered medication provoked a cardiac arrest and, as a consequence, a backup organ.
The second heart has done its job
Surgeries in which the patient's heart is left in place and the other is transplanted into the right side of the chest are rare. One, for example, was made in 1996. in London. World-renowned heart surgeon Magdi Yakub transplanted someone else's heart to a two-year-old girl, Hannah Clark. Her own, which was twice the size of the norm, could not bear the stress. The cardiac surgeon transplanted the donor heart into the right side of the breast, and left the “native” heart in its place.
Hannah lived like this for ten years. However, in 2006. the girl began to reject the transplant (it was precisely in anticipation of this possibility that the surgeon left her “native” heart).
At that time Magdi Yakub was already a retired, he did not operate and only consulted surgeons. Initially, it was assumed that doctors would either suppress the rejection reaction, or start the patient's own heart. It turned out that over the ten years of the work of the double organ, Hannah's heart rested, recovered, and most importantly, in all respects it became the same. Therefore, the "double" was superfluous - and the body began to reject it.
The operation was very easy; after her, Hannah spent only five days in the clinic (several months were planned). Having quickly recovered, the girl even began active sports.
A similar operation in March 2009. was held in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Cardiac surgeon Alfredo Fiorelli transplanted a donor heart to a 53-year-old patient, leaving his own and connecting both vessels. Now the man feels well, and doctors say that his own worn out heart is functioning much better than it was before.