HEART BEATS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 9, 12 January 1932, Page 16

HEART BEATS

TELL-TALE SIGNALS

READING THE SECRET

At Hollywood producers have installed an electric macliino which records the emotions of an audience at a scroening. Tho apparatus is similar to the "liedetector"—that is, it records the heartbeats 011 an electric time-system. Any acceleration of the boat is taken to signify that "emotion" has been registered, says .the Sydney "Daily Telegraph." According lo reports the producers hopo to cut out sections which do not produce marked reactions. In other words, they aspire to put beforo the rublic a movio which is "all thrill." This ia scientifically impossible. Just as in a painting high-lights are thrown into relief by shadows, any presentation of life must have its blank emotional backwaters, to throw into relief the high spots of excitement. A film "all thrill" would end by swiftly jading its audience. It is doubtful whether such a production could possibly be presented. ' The electric registration of the heart's action referred to in this cable has had a peculiar efficacy in medical diagnosis. Tho electrocardiograph has been of the greatest service in the diagnosis of heart disease. The modern study of this affection by means of the electrocardiograph enables a detailed diagnosis to be made with an accuracy that was not possible before the invention of this instrument. COMPLEX. The heart-beat is a complex action. Its component parts are graphically portrayed by the electrocardiogram, and so can bo studied by tho physician in a way which is impossible for his unaided senses. He can to-day hot merely listen to his patient's heart and feel the pulse, but he can have 1111 illustrated, detailed diagram of every boat recorded by this interesting machine. In this record he sees a graphic representation, not only of what tho heart is doing (which produces the pulse), but also of tho intervening stages of the heart's action, which are just as important. Sydney Hospital has. recently installed an electrocardiograph. Invented by a Dutch scientist, Eithoven, this apparatus was at lirst merely a laboratory curiosity. About eight years ago medical men "woke up to""its diagnostic usefulness. It can tell the specialist vital heart stories. The tell-tale electric current, passes along strings so minute that they arc invisible to the naked eye. Composed of "silver quartz," these strings are barely one-third tho thickness of ordinary cigarette paper. These strings can ' measure va^ia« tions in the contraction of the hoartmuscle within ono hundred-thousandth part- of a minute. The mere fact of ono part of the heart taking onc-fivo hundredth part of a minute longer to contract shows eravo heart-disease. • THEIR EFFECT. , A well-known Macquarie street specialist, who is a pioneer in this technique, has been for several years followiag up these graphic indications of heart disease. . "Patients may look at their electrocardiograph charts," he suys, "but they are usually too frightened to bother " oftw a- ff a/ My from tllis °PPlication of electricity to medical diagnosis to the, sl m,lar. diagnosis of motion in.film fans let not bo far. All mental Dear. Ihe registration upon aa electrocardiograph of a,, individual swayed by emotion ]S abnormal. It registers a cTTi 1 Wh) C!l, imlicates * boatfccSorat cd beyond the usual limit. f,-n new, fo. m of'love-letter may ovolve fiom such heart action analyses. What more convincing proo f of affection than a simple graph of accelerations S name," niCUti°n °£ thG adored I , ril t the wavy line traced by the I electrocardiograph a doctor may read llHognant dramas; as when theses