It is said that Vesalius demonstrated this condition on the thorax of a pig.
Gooch gives an instance of a boy of thirteen who fell from the top of a barn upon the sharp prow of a plough, inflicting an oblique wound from the axilla to below the sternum, slightly above the insertion of the diaphragm.

Several ribs were severed, and the left thoracic cavity was wholly exposed to view, showing the lungs, diaphragm, and pericardium all in motion.

The lungs soon became gangrenous, and in this horrible state the patient lived twelve days.

One of the curious facts noticed by the ancient writers was the amelioration of the symptoms caused by thoracic wounds after hemorrhage from other locations; and naturally, in the treatment of such injuries, this circumstance was used in advocacy of depletion.

Monro speaks of a gentleman who was wounded in a duel, and who had all the symptoms of hemothorax; his condition was immediately relieved by the evacuation of a considerable quantity of bloody matter with the urine.