RHEUMATISM.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5306, 30 July 1928, Page 1

RHEUMATISM.

MORE COMMON WITH BLONDES. RED HAIR AND HEART DISEASE. Of three great scourges with which Great Britain, is confronted —tuberculosis, cancer, and heart disease —the last, according to Dr. T. Jenner Hoskin, phys,ician-in-Char;ge of the Cardiographical Department at the Royal Free Hospital, in a lecture, at the Institute of Hygien.e.. London, 'is by far the most formidable. In 1926, he said, 142 'of every 1000' deaths recorded were due to diseases of the heart, 117 to cancer, and 82 to tuberculosis. Mote than 40 per cent, of the heart troubles were of rheumatic origin, so that it could be stated that approximately 25,000 died annually in Great Britain as the result of rheumatic heaflt 'disease. He said :— “My own experience has been that rheumatic .heart disease is somewhat more common in the fair-haired Nord'c races than in the dark-haired Iberian stock, or, to paraphrase Anita Loos, ‘Rheumatism prefers blondes.’ “Indeed, I have often remarked on the frequency of rheumatic hearts in children with red hair, and when I see in, my wards a child with red hair, freckles, and a definite' pallor'of the face, i make a shrewd guests that lie o.r she will be found to have been admitted for 'heart disease, and 1 find I am r ? ght in almost every caste. “It. has also been my experience in the East.<End. of London that rheumatic heart disease is less common among the alien population, notably Jews and dark-skinned .races. “The hig Public Schools, without exception,. seem to be almost immune from it, and at Eton, in. spite of its low-lying situation, where there are over 1000 boys between the ages of 13 and. 18, a case of rheumatic hearit. disease is of the rarest occurrence.”