HEART AT WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 297, 16 December 1935, Page 9

HEART AT WORK.

BEATS SEEN ON SCREEN. WONDERS OF MEDICAL EXHIBITION LONDON, November L Privileged persons last week watched a human heart beat. In a peephole set in something that resembled a cross between a refrigerator and a radio set appeared a tiny green spot. It danced and quivered across the dark background, leaving behind it a fading "afterglow." Arrived at one side of the "oscillograph screen," it reappeared at the other, and began again its teetering, mincing journey. Each flutte r represented a heart beat. The "patient" lay on a couch, wires in contact with his hands and ankle.

If necessary, this queerly restless spot can be automatically photographed on a film that unfolds before it. The cardiograph is the name of the mechanism, and it was on view at the N<;w Hall of the Royal Geographical Society, in Greycoat Street, Westminster, where the London Medical Exhibition was held.

The cardiograph, which embodies a cathode .ray tube, gives the physician direct visual observation of his patient's heart-beat. Not only can he obtain this at the bedside, but he can discover the heart's condition in a few moments, without being compelled to await the development of the photographic record.

The exhibition is a fascinating affair. At one stall are Carefully fashioned masks which may replace or supplement the costly plastic surgery that "rebuilds" the faces of the badly injured. The cost of .the masks is within the means of the less well-to-do. Made of copper, cleverly painted to resemble flash, they form a "new face" behind which the victim of accident or disfiguring disease can once more take his place in the world. A new hay fever treatment is also shown. Various British erass pollens, of the type which set victims sneezing, nave been made into a solution. A course of immunisation and innoculation by the pollen solution contained in tiny phials, is now possible.

There are spectacles which allow one to read a book held at chest or waist level in perfect comfort while lying flat.

These spectacles are intended for invalids, but they are suitable for the comfort-loving reader-in-bed, eliminating the fatigue of holding the book before the face.

There are electric stethoscopes which can be used by deaf doctors, a new apparatus for the resuscitation of newly, born babies, and an "all-British cod liver oil, guaranteed for vitamin potency," manufactured by a group of Hull trawler owners, who have refineries in the boats.

The exhibition is for the medical profession onlv.