Health In The Home

Southland Times, Issue 23254, 17 July 1937, Page 16

Health In The Home

(By

A FAMILY DOCTOR)

Perhaps one of the most disabling of conditions among the inhabitants of this country is the incompetent heart. It affects the very youngest, the middleaged, ond the oldest among us; it undoubtedly acocunts for far the greater number of all chronic invalids. Now it must be realized that once chronic heart disease has developed nothing as a rule can put it right again. The happiness and success .of the patient’s existence depend entirely on his own effort of will; he has got to make up his mind so to arrange his life that he lives, so to speak, down to the level of his heart. You must not expect to find a medicine that will enable you to run about as before without getting short of breath. You have got to arrange your existence so that running about is no longer a part of it. Now each patient will differ from every other in exactly how much he can do without putting a strain on his heart. So long as he does not get out of breath he is within the limits of safety. But, unfortunately, he will not realize that he has over-stepped the mark until he actually finds he is short of breath; and that is exactly what he must not do. I have found it an excellent and simple rule to tell the patient to do what he likes so long as he can breathe with his mouth shut; directly he finds he has to open his mouth to breathe he is going too far. In this way he will pull himself up before he gets to the stage of shortness of breath, of putting a strain on his heart, of doing further damage to it. This rule does not, of course, apply to those who only get short of breath when they indulge in excessive exercise; it applies merely to those who get short of breath during the ordinary routine of life.