TRUTH ABOUT HEART DISEASE URGED

Grey River Argus, 7 November 1949, Page 8

TRUTH ABOUT HEART DISEASE URGED

NEWHAVEN. CONNECTICUT

People must be taught the truth about heart desease so that individuals will “not be frightened without cause,” according 10 a Yale University Professor. Dr. Harold M. Martin, President of the American Heart Association asserted that medical investigators have learned that only a small percentage of so-called “heart attacks” are fatal or disabling, that high blood pressure is not so terrifying as it was once thought to be, and that** thousands of men and women with heart disease ar e leading active lives in comfort. “This battle against our greatest health problem,” said Dr. Martin “must be fought by all people, not just by the doctors.” Dr. Martin, who is Associate Clinical Professor of medicine at Yale, said that five types of heart illnesses that ar e frequent enough to be considered health problems are: 1. Congenital heart diseases, which is present at birth r and accounts for two and three per cent, of all heart disease. 2. The type caused by syphilis, responsible for six to eight per cent. 3. Rheumatic heart disease, accounting for 90 per cent, of all heart disease in childhood and early adult life. 4. The type caused by high blood pressure. 5. The kind caused by hardening or narrowing of the coronary arteries.