Heart Disease.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 76

Heart Disease.

Medical men are inquiring into the increas' in the number of deaths from hed"rt disease. The causes assigned are business pressure, quick lunches, haste on every side, running upstairs, intense worry, and deprivation of sleep. Another and pregnant cause, which has come in with the last 10 years, is the abuse of the coal-tar medical preparations, which undoubtedly relievo pain, but relieve it at the expense of the normal action of the heart. Phenacstin, an example of these preparations, is a deadly peril when unduly used by the layman without proper medical advice. And it is accessible to anyone who wants it, in any quantity. It would be advisable if the city business man would take things a little more coolly than he does —if he would prefer slow lunches to quick ones, would walk upstairs, would let the other fellow do the worrying. But it would also be advisable if he would refrain from weakening his heart by means of pain-allayin,/ medicines taken without a physician's prescription.

Disease Germs in Money.— Your money may kill you if you don't watch out. Bacteriologists say that the old green and yellow backs are loaded with disease germs. Don't count your money, I they caution. Leave it alone. If you have a roll of the long green about your person lock it up in some place and don't go near it. It may cause your death. A money handler died here lately from a rare disease called mvxedema— a*, disease caused by the germs which infect paper currency. His death is not the first, nor will it V>e the last in the opinion of an official of the Sub-treasury, who declares the public take their lives" into their hands if they handle paper money without the utmost caution. The money-handler's death was due to his habit of wetting the tips of his finger* with his tongue. The infection spread to the blood, and in time a general thickening' of the itissues followed. The thyroid gland was attacked, and from here it spread to the heart, the liver, and the optic nerve, which it practically paralysed. It is a puzzling disease, and the physicians were unable to stem its progress, although they identified the ailment.— Pittsburg (Pa.) Despatch.