HEART BEATS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21544, 16 January 1932, Page 20

HEART BEATS

TELL-TALE SIGNALS READING THE SECRET. At Hollywood producers _ have installed an electric machine which records the emotions of an audience at a screening. The apparatus is similar to the liedetector”—that is, it records the heartbeats on an electric time system. Any acceleration of the beat is taken to signify that “ emotion ” has been registered (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph). According to reports the producers hope to cut out sections which do not produce marked reactions. In other words, they aspire to put before before the public a movie which is “all thrill.” This is 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. The electrocardiograph has been of the greatest service in the diagnosis of heai t 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 be studied by the physician in a way which is impossible for his unaided senses. He can to-day not merely listen to hie patient’s heart and feel the pulse, but he can have an illustrated, detailed diagram of every beat recorded by this interesting machine. In this record he sees a graphic representation, not only of what the heart is doing (which produces the pulse), but also of the 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 first 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 are invisible to the naked eye. Composed of “ silver quartz,” these strings are barely ;one-third the thickness of ordinary cigarette paper. These strings can measure variations in the contraction of the heatt-muscle within one hundred-thousandth part of a minute. The mere fact of one part of the heart taking one-five-hundredth part,' of' a minute longer to contract shows grave heart disease. THEIR EFFECT. A well-known Macquarie .street specialist, who is a pioneer in this technique, has been for several years following up these graphic indications of heart disease. “ Patients may look at their electrocardiograph charts,” he . says, “ but' they are usually too frightened to bother.” It is a far cry from.this application of electricity to medical diagnosis to the similar diagnosis of emotion in .film fans. Yet not so far. All mental'emotion has a reaction’upon the heart beat. The registration upon an electrocardiograph of an individual swayed by emotion is abnormal. It registers a graph which indicates a beat accelerated beyond, the usual limit. A new form of love letter may evolve from such heart action analyses. What more convincing ■ proof of affection than a simple graph of accelerations due to the mention o f the adored- one’s name ? In the wavy line traced by the electrocardiograph a doctor , may read poignant dramas; as when the waves sink lower and slowly flatten into the level of death.