-
THE PKE-WSNTION OF HEART DISEASE
By LeRoy Long, M.D., Direbtor,
The LeRoy Long Clinic,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The heart is an absolutely vital organ, When it is
diseased the body suffers. When it ceases to function the body
dies.
Let us look at what the heart has to do. This indispensable organ, in the average adult, weighs ten or twelve ounces.
The total amount of blood in the average adult weighs eight or
nine pounds. All of it goes through the heart about every twenty-
three seconds. Almost three times a minute; almost one hundred
eighty times an hour the heart handles a volume of blood eight or
ten times its own weight. Remember the work that the heart has
to do.
Into the right side of the heart comes the blood after
its hurried hut orderly circuit of the body to which it has
carried life, and when it comes hack it is loaded with waste
material. The heart sends it to the lungs where waste material
is exchanged for oxygen. Then it goes^ to the left side of the
heart from which it is flung out through a great artery and its
branches and sub-divisions to again reach every nook and cranny
with a new supply of food for the body. During this intriguing
and all-important proceeding the blood never stops. It is refuelling in rapid flight, beeause the heart is behind it.
The heart itself must have blood, and it receives it
through a most ingenious and intricate mechanism which depends
upon its own function and its own control. When it receives good
blood, nutrition is good and the heart is strong. When it
receives bad blood, nutrition is poor and the heart is weak.
%£
Box No. 24 from the Long Collection in the Bird Library History of Medicine Collection, contained in the 3rd folder within the box. Call Number: W 5 L848.
