A diseased heart, showing an aortic aneursym with an enlarged left ventricle. Chromolithograph by W. Gummelt, ca. 1897.

The print shows the heart from the posterior, so that the anatomical left and right are shown in the same direction as the viewer's left and right, instead of (as usual) the other way round. The lower part of the print shows the two ventricles of the heart, the left one massively enlarged and the right one having its normal size. The aortic valve in the middle has been broken through, and the aorta above is grossly enlarged by an aneurysm. The symptoms are one of the many features of syphilis: the heart came from the body of a sailor who had contracted syphilis in 1875. He died in the City-Hospital at Hamburg-Eppendorf in January 1892, aged 37 years.