PACE TAKES TOLL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22339, 26 May 1947, Page 4

PACE TAKES TOLL

TIRED BUSINESSMEN MANY UNTIMELY DEATHS EARLY HEART FAILURE CHICAGO, May 4. One hundred successful Chicago businessmen learned this week what success and high-pressure modern life can do to a human heart. They had attended a splendid luncheon and settled down to an instructive half-hour, which was called the first public post-mortem exhibit. The lecturer produced seven glass jars in which were preserved the hearts of dead men, all of whom had been successful business executives. The hearts were distorted, some nearly five times normal size.

A normal adult heart is about sin. long, 3Ain. wide, and 2£m, thick. In No. 3 jar was a clotted, inflamed heart which had belonged to a department store vice-president who had risen to success from a poor boy’s slum back,'round. He had refused to slow down on a doctor's advice and had died at 46.

JThere was a gnarled, angry-looking heart of a high-pressure, hot-tempered executive who nad a fatal stroke arguing with another executive. He, too. had been told to case the pace, but paid no attention and died at ril. Another was the heart of a businessman who died at 36, yet could have lived to 70 if he taken it easy.

Told that in 1900 heart ailments were third on the list of death causes, but today were the first, the businessmen wrote cheques totalling £6250 for the Naiional Heart Association's campaign.