HEART STRAIN AND ITS PREVENTION.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 181, 9 June 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

HEART STRAIN AND ITS PREVENTION.

THE VALUE OK GOING r IO BED EMILY.

In reading a paper recently on "Heart-Strain and Its Prevention" before the Institute of Hygiene, Dr. J. Strickland Goodall drew attention to the enormous amount of wo-k done by the heart. From before birth until usually a short time after death it beats uninterruptedly at rates varying from 70 to 150 01 more contractions a minute, doing at each contraction enough work tj raise a two-pound weight through a foot. Some conception of the work done can be gauged by placing a two-pound weight in the pa.'in of the hand, resting the elbow, and raising md lowering tin weight from the level of the elbow to the shoulder.

| Acute heart-strain is difficult to produce in a young, well nourished, and healthy adult; hut it is very easy to produce if the 1 cart-muse!*? \s anaemic, poisoned, or the seat of degenerative change. When the heart is strained, t loses its power of doing extra work. Cases have been observed in which the heart had actually hurst, and one case in which an animal had nurtured its heart and died from emotion. Heartstrain may be induce J in some of tilt common, thoughtless actions of everyday life, as, foi instance, in the action I,l of running to ci.tch a train. In an actual experiment made on a person with a healthy heart, before the run the heart-rate was 76 per minute, and the heart was doing 102 foot-pounds of work a minute; after the run the heart-rate was lt'O per minute, and the heart was doing 360 foot pounds a minute. Great strain may also lie imposed upon the heart by ascending stairs hurriedly. Emotions affect the heart, and as a result of anger the work of the heart may be increased from 1 -~2 to 224 footpounds per minute. "Keep your temper" is, therefore, good physiological advice. When the cardiac rate and work are increased by strenuous exertions, it is not only during the actual exertion that the heart's work is increased, but extra work continues to be done for some time after the cessation of the exertion. The enormous amount of total extra work done by the heart is shown in the experiment of riding a bicycle uphill, the gradient being 1 .n 10,* the length 2f04 feet, <md the time of ride 3} minutes. In a tested example the extra work-would have raised I 1 -Stli ton> through one foot. The work of the heart cou'd be economised in many ways. If one went to bod every night at ten instead of twelve, the heart would be saved 876,000 foot-pounds of work in a year; r.y lying donr, hr.li an hour daily there would be an annual economy ol 210,000 foot-pounds; an hour's rest every Sunday would save 62,400 foot-pounds; and by spending every Sunday in bed, inI stead of only shaping eight hours, the saving in the year would r>e SWS.IOO foot-nounds.