SHORTNESS OF BREATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1938, Page 10

SHORTNESS OF BREATH

DISORDER OF THE HEART. Apart from general debility, slackness of health, anaemia and minor toxic causes, the most frequent factor leading to breathlessness in adults is some disorder of the heart. This symptom is present in all disease in which the heart is unequal to the work demanded of it. Most often the shortness of breath is noticed only on exertion, as in walking or going up two or three stairs, but in severe cases the symptom may be observed even when the person is at rest. In this latter case the breathlessness is indicating that the heart is having great difficulty in carrying on, and that some degree of heart failure is pending or actually in existence. Breathlessness is essentially a sign that the heart muscle is weakned, it may be temporarily. When the heart valves are involved, and the heart muscle is able to compensate for the defect (Nature’s method of correction), breathlessness does not arise. It is only when the heart’s power of compensation is strained and impaired that this symptom arises. Shortness of breath is a most significant sympton in heart disorders, for it is the guide to the doctor as to the efficiency of the heart. The amount of exertion which can be taken without producing breathlessness are, of all symptoms, the most valuable indications of the efficiency of the heart function.