BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Cornell University received the heart of Jumbo the elephant about 1889 in association
with specimens acquired by Professor Burt Green Wilder. It no longer exists. According to
the journal American medicine, Volume 7, 1904, Professor. Burt G. Wilder was planning to
dissect the heart of Jumbo with a group of students. This article also gives the
dimensions of Jumbo's heart as, 28 inches long x 24 inches wide, with walls of the
artery 5/8 of an inch thick, large enough to contain an ordinary heart, and those of the
ventricle 3 inches thick. The weight was given as around 40 pounds. The specimen jar
that housed at least a portion of Jumbo's heart is still stored at the Cornell Veterinary School. It was
featured in an exhibition in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. The jar was found empty in the basement of Stimson Hall by Dr. Howard Evans in the 1940s. It had a label attached saying Jumbo's heart. The jar lid has loops in the glass designed for hooks to suspend the specimen.
