The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-05-27

heart disease go on for years I'M
aware of il until it is turned up
on q life insurance examination,
or army examination.
Emotional stress, or fear, sensi-
ties the consciousness so that the
ordinary activities Of the heart OBJ
trude themselves upon it. Perhaps
that accounts for the many letters
l have been receiving on the sub
ject-the war and all its emotion
upsetting powers being respon-
sible.
Palpitation, or consciousness Of
heart action alone, never means
any real heart disease or anything
serious. But if one begins to worry
it may go into permanent func-
tional if not anatomical heart dis
ease. Nothing illustrates this bet
ter than the condition known as
soldiers heart. 1t has occurred in
a quite definite proportion Of
troops in every war Of which we
have any record.
In the Civil War DR.. Da Costa
called it soldiers heart; in World
War / and this war it is called
neuro = circulatory asthenia. Take
an individual with a fundamen-
tally unstable nervous system,
thrust him into such a set Of con-
ditions as every drafted man has
to endure, let some emotion or
excitement make his heart beat 20
fast and so hard that he notices
it, and then let him get to worIy-
ing about whether his heart is all
right or not and before long you
have a fully developed case of neu-
ro-circulstory asthenia-with fast
pulse up to $50 beats q minute,
high blood pressure, nervousness,
easy fatigue-ability and insomnia.
There were 10000 such cases in
the English army alone in 1914
1918 and $4,000 had to be per-
manently pensioned.
Cases in U. S. Army
I saw many such cases in our
own army in that same time and
always thought the thyroid gland
had been activated by emotion and
made the heart beat fast. We
know one of the symptoms Of thy
roid gland intoxication is fast
pulse and this is easily felt by the
patient and is Of the causes Of
palpitation.
Very common in middle aged
and elderly people is conscious
ness of the hearts action from Q
dropped beat of the heart. This is
known as an extrasystole. 1t is
a disorder of the property Of irri-
liability of the heart muscle. Every
ono in a while or sometimes reg
ularly every three or five beats
the heart throws in an extra beat
ahead of time, and then in order
to compensate for its extra work
it makes a longer pause than usual.
1t is the long pause that is felt
by consciousness
No Serious Condition
Nearly everyone who expert
ences it for the first time thinks
it is the end Of all and very serious.
Doctors used to think so them
selves until DR.. James Mackenzie
reported a number Of people whom
he had watched with these extra
systoles for from twenty to twen-
ty-fve years and found them still
in the best Of health and free from
heart trouble. Tobacco, because it
works on the property of irritable
ity Of the heart will bring on this
form Of irregularity and it goes
away just as rapidly as it came on
if the tobacco is given up for q
while.
But worrying about ones heart
just because you happen to feel it
beating some time is a bad prac-
tice and leads to real disability.
Remember the centipede got along
all right until someone asked him
which leg came after which when
he walked and he got TO putting
his mind on that and that mixed
him up so that he became q help
less cripple.