The Battle Against Heart Disease: A Physician Traces the History of Man's Achievements in this Field for the General Reader

by P. E. Baldry

• ISBN13: 9780521103152
• ISBN10: 0521103150
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-19
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Operations on the heart and the prevalence of coronary thrombosis are widely discussed in newspapers and magazines; the importance of this book is that by simple and accurate information it enables the layman as well as doctors to understand the disturbances produced by disease and how they may be corrected or avoided. By discussing our methods against the background of their gradual evolution throughout history the reader is enabled to view the advances of the day in their proper perspective and to appreciate our indebtedness to the work of doctors and scientists in past centuries. It is stressed that the magnificent achievements of present-day surgeons must not be allowed to detract from the very important though less spectacular advances which have been made both in the medical treatment and prevention of heart disease. This book describes, in historical sequence, the progress in understanding the heart's action, the diagnosis of its disorders and their treatment from the time of Hippocrates to the second half of the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Preliminary reconnaissance by the early Greeks

Reappraisal during the Renaissance

The circulation discovered

Respiration and its purpose

The structure and function of the heart

Simultaneous attack on the joints and the heart

The foxglove as a therapeutic weapon

'Tapping and listening

The use and misuse of the stethoscope

The generation of electricity in the heart

Disorders of rate and rhythm

The lifeline threatened

Preventing and combating 'heart attacks'

The heart under pressure

Invasion of the heart by bacteria

Pump failure

Congenital heart disease

The triumphs of surgery

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