The Heart of Jumbo the Elephant

1904

It's the Biggest Heart in the World

ITHACA, N. Y., Jan. 30. — The biggest heart in the world, that of the elephant Jumbo, is preserved in the museum of the department of neurology, vertebrate zoology and physiology of Cornell University. If the heart were not so large it would stand in a glass jar on the shelves of the museum with hundreds of those of other animals and men.

But Jumbo's heart is so big that it lies in a barrel stowed away in the cellar of the museum, glass jars not being made large enough to hold the great mass of muscle. Some time it will be dissected by a class of students and then thrown away.

Jumbo had a heart ninety-eight times as large as the average human organ. It now weighs 36½ pounds, after having soaked several years in alcohol. A human heart, which weighs a little more than a pound, soaked in alcohol for the same length of time, weighs 10 ounces. The human heart is less than six inches long. Jumbo's is 28 inches, and 24 inches wide. The ordinary heart could be contained in the main artery of Jumbo's heart. The walls of the artery are five-eighths of an inch thick, while the walls of the ventricle are three inches thick.

When Jumbo met his heroic death at St. Thomas, Ont., trying to save the baby elephant and being himself killed by a locomotive, his carcass was sent to the Ward Natural Science establishment at Rochester. The skeleton was presented and put on exhibition and the hide mounted.

Dr. Burt G. Wilder of Cornell purchased the heart of the animal to add it to his colossal collection. The brains of Jumbo were also desired, but these had been shattered in the collision. When the heart reached Ithaca it was found impractical to preserve it by the process which retains its original shape, and so the organ was put in a barrel of alcohol. It had not been removed for years until Dr. Hugh D. Reed lifted it from the barrel to show to The Herald correspondent.

—The Sunday Herald, Syracuse, New York, Jan. 31, 1904, p. 23.