THE HEART

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1919, Page 3

THE HEART

SOME NEW VIEWS ABOUT IT. ITS NATURE AND DUTY. Why do you say that “Her heart is breaking with sorrow’,” "Elizabeth is ■light hearted,” “The lion has a strong heart/' “He is a man of stout heart”? Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, according to Matthew. If you will examine this verse (states a writer in the New York Sun), as well as the other phrases, the clue and physiology behind them will be discovered. It is the simple observation"'.that “a heart bowed down” or one “buoyed up” seems to be definitely influenced by sorrow or hope]"worry or success In fine, the automatic muscle called the heart moves in unison with tire emo-1 tions and the feelings. Absence is said to make the heart grow fonder, but if it stirs the passions it does not grow stronger. I Professor G-. A. Sutherland, Fellow | of the Royal College of Physicians of j London, and an authority on hearty disease, has just pointed out that within recent years there has been a revolution in* the domain of cardiology, or heart knowledge.. The mechanism of the heart beat, which was once thought to be due to the nerves or to Chemicals, is now known to be a vital .phenomenon resident in the heart tissue j .itself and dependent upon cleanliness ■ ,and simple food. _ | In general, doctors used to consider the heart a sort of horse with two horse reins attached to it as a bridle, one the vagus or depressor nerve—a chet?T rein—the other the whip or ac-, celerator nerve. The former, the vagus, controls, steadies, guides, and hinders any impulsiveness of the heart, while the latter stimulates and speeds up the heart beat. LIKE A HOUSE. v„. . •mrr'rr’ Nowadays, however, the heart is recognised as a complicated two-story house with two rooms on each floor, two chimneys—huge veins--on the roof, and two side porches-—huge arteries —on the first floor. , Its four walls and their muscular deeds of derring-do are now studied and . reported to the doctor for judgment and treatment by means of the two new heart instruments,’ the polygraph and the electro cardiograph. Unless a physician utilises these aids his diagnosis and his remedies must needs be wide of the mark. The activities of the heart to be considered in health or illness are its sensitiveness and elasticity, its tone or flabbiness, its rhythm and regularity, its susceptibilities and responses to passions and feelings, and its power to conduct electric currents. Formidable and remote ns these terms may seem to you at first mention, they are all easily investigated by the modern heart specialist. 1 Any disturbance of one or more of these heart qualities must be sought out and known , by the doctor before he is able to take a hand to hold the horse reins, diagnose precisely what is amiss, and then, like the general a real doctor must be, lay out a remedial plan of campaign. “THE WHOLE WORKS.” In this regard the exact words of Dr. Sutherland come to mind: —“As we study the discoveries which have been made as to the extreme complexity of the cardiac mechanism, we are led to ask how this machine is controlled and how far it can be influenced by human 'interference?” 1 The physiological working of the heart suggests that it is an automatic, .high-powered, high-geared, self-starting, self-acting, self-feeding, self-lubricating, •air-cooled, blood-heated structure, with a blood-driving end in view. It is, as

j the street saying goes, “the whole I works.” | Even under the stress and strain of disease it can bo seen as a powerful in- ) strumout, able to overcome difficulties !in its own way. This is true of some valvular hear., diseases, where the,lesion or, sore has to do with partially closed curtains or flaps called valves. These guard the exits of blood from one’ heart j chamber to the other as well os’ into ( the arteries. ‘ By virtue of its automatic action the heart is also safeguarded against various i disturbances to which other parts of man’s anatomy are' subject, j At all events, it should be a great j matter of consolation to healers, opa- | thists, thoughtists, nature fakers, and | doctors as well, that the excellent and normal’ automatic action of the heart muscle after all is not disturbed in dis- : ease or in health by most of the heart tonics, cardiac stimulants, and other medicines levelled with misdirected energy at the heart. It should indeed be a “great consolation, because few of them ever reach the heart. u