SHORTNESS OF BREATH

Evening Star, Issue 17710, 11 July 1921, Page 7

SHORTNESS OF BREATH

! HEART DISK \ S'F, RESEARCH IN I AMERICA. Some important studies on the subject of heart disease have Just been completed in \raedca by Dr John P. Pciers and David Barr, of tho Rnsssll Sage Institute of Pathology. The studies were carried out on patients suffering from breathlcosijess associated with advanced heart di-ease, and the object was to determine if possible the nature of this most distressing symptom. A ; great deal of work is being done on this subject at present in England. Tho American workers found that : n patients afflicted _ with this condition the volume of air in the lungs D actually diminished. There is a lowering of the amount of air available at any gVn liny for breathing. Or. in olhor words, the effective lung volume is less than normal. It fol'om- that in there ca'es great increases of “ vcnulat'on ” are impossible. One knows that during exertion every mar I “ventilate.'-” more beoau e he requires more j oxygen and also has more carbonic ac cl gis jto get rid of. If, however, his availab'c 'ah I space is_ diminishrd lie is in the position o' j a motorict whole engine power is not snffl. cient for hill climbing. . In order -to attempt to “ventilate” be'tor ho begins to breathe faster, attempting, ns it were, to make the reduced lung spice do more work in sho"te>time. This is the "breathlessness." The trouble, in fact, is shortness of breathin'’ space rather than shortners of breath. ° ' Other workers in Great Britain have shown recently that the chests of breathless people are sunken and do not open frcelv when they breathe, and efforts have been mado to cause them to expand by exercise. Th'fie efforts have relieved many person? who were very boath'esa before they were employed—though of course in heart disease such measures must be very carefully employed. The new work is of deep interest, and opens up a fresh avenue for thought and perhaps for treatment.