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

This book describes, in historical sequence, the progress in understanding the heart's action, the diagnosis of its disorders and their treatment.

P. E. Baldry (Author)

9780521103152, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 March 2009

200 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.3 kg

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.

1. Preliminary reconnaissance by the early Greeks
2. Reappraisal during the Renaissance
3. The circulation discovered
4. Respiration and its purpose
5. The structure and function of the heart
6. Simultaneous attack on the joints and the heart
7. The foxglove as a therapeutic weapon
8. 'Tapping and listening
9. The use and misuse of the stethoscope
10. The generation of electricity in the heart
11. Disorders of rate and rhythm
12. The lifeline threatened
13. Preventing and combating 'heart attacks'
14. The heart under pressure
15. Invasion of the heart by bacteria
16. Pump failure
17. Congenital heart disease
18. The triumphs of surgery.

Subject Areas: Medicine: general issues [MB]