Introduction
Cardiac wounds have been described from many centuries as the earliest
known appeared in Homer’s iliad. To date stab wounds to the heart remain
a life-threatening injury. Their management is still highly challenging
and requires immediate care and transfer to a surgical atmosphere. Even
nowadays despite medicalized helicopters, ambulances and presence of
well distributed hospitals on our territory, a cardiac penetrating wound
is often fatal. Moreover it is only 123 years ago that the first
successful repair of a cardiac wound was reported, passing through a
long history of mysticism and medical criticism. Herein we report a
brief overview of the care of cardiac penetrating wounds, illustrating
also the birth of cardiac surgery and how dogma in medicine should be
criticized.