DISEASES OF HEART

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1935, Page 2

DISEASES OF HEART

COMPARISON WITH CANCER. INCIDENCE TWICE AS GREAT. Whether or not the importance of cancer research was being over-rated, considering that each. year in New Zealand only half as many deaths were ascribed to tumours as to diseases of the heart, was a question discussed by New Plymouth medical men interviewed yesterday. In the New Zealand monthly abstract of statistics for January the toll taken by heart disease in urban areas in 1934 was recorded as 1977. Cancer had caused 1015 deaths.

It was undoubtedly true that heart disease was the most common cause of death, but the heavy rate was not due to insufficient knowledge, said one doctor. Research could not appreciably change the position because the fault ultimately lay with civilisation itself. The hustle and racket of modem living put upon heart and nerves a pressure under which one or the other must sooner or later give way. Those who did not develop as neurasthenics, if they were healthy individuals, would probably die of heart failure. Conditions to-day imposed an intolerable strain upon the organs. It was likely that figures a century ago would show fewer deaths due to diseases of the heart because living in more tranquil days was less insistent in its demands.

Another reasdn for the preponderance of heart disease as a cause of death was suggested. Many diseases, such as tuberculosis, influenza, or even cancer itself, were accompanied in the end by a failure of the heart. The primary cause might be heart failure, but secondarily it could be traced to a concomitant malady. Sometimes the issues were confused in a difficult case.

Often a doctor was called upon to sign a death certificate when he had no knowledge of the history of the patient. He could not know the secondary cause and Was therefore forced to ascribe death only on his own finding, not always an indication of the true position.

Frequently disease of the heart was the most obvious and satisfactory explanation. It was received without comment and the doctor was saved from spending time he could ill afford on an exhaustive and' perhaps impossible investigation into secondary causes. A note of criticism was struck by another medical man. Vital statistics in New Zealand, he said, were not compiled on as satisfactory a system as those of Holland, for example. In New Zealand doctors signed the death certificates and ascribed the cause of death. The certificate, however, pasSed through the statistical office where the Staff confirmed or altered the decision of the doctor upon the primary cause. Unfortunately, the members of the staff were not qualified medical men, though they might sometimes seek outside advice from experts. They were not always in a position to judge the implications of the comments of the doctor who had handled the case. In Holland, added the doctor, death certificates were elaborate documents that elicited all necessary information. They were handled by a trained staff of medical men.