Protecting your heart / Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

Date:
[1940?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Protecting your heart / Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    get enough rest is less likely to break down prematurely than is a heart that is overworked. Causes of Heart Disease awl disease is a general term which covers a number of different diseases of the heart. By this general term is meant any defect in the heart which interferes with its proper functioning. The most common types of heart disease are caused by: 1. The invasion of the heart by germs or toxins which damage the heart muscle, the valves, the tissue lining the cavity of the heart, or the bag of tissue which surrounds the heart. 2. Overwork of the heart muscle caused by any great or unusual strain, such as that imposed by high blood pressure or disease of the valves. 3. Degenerative disease of the coronary arteries which supply the heart muscle with blood. ‘*Rheumatic’’ Heart Disease An attack of rheumatic fever, mild or severe, very frequently damages the heart. This disease usually occurs during the first three decades of life. The exact cause of rheumatic fever is not known, but it appears to be due to an infection by germs of the streptococcus family or by a virus, or perhaps by a germ and a virus working together. In the early stages of rheumatic fever various parts of the body may be attacked. When the joints are affected they become swollen, hot and red, tender, and painful. When the muscles are affected they become stiff and sore. In some cases the nervous system is affected and a nervous twitching develops which is known as chorea, or St. Vitus dance. Fever, sweating, weakness, anemia, and loss of weight frequently are present. A child may have rheumatic fever without seeming to
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