A Little Bit About The History of Heart Disease
by Roger Ross, DVM FoxNest Veterinary Hospital
Some introductory comments;
Heart diseases of various types is probably the biggest killer of Americans. Apparently about 350,000 deaths a year in the US.
Compare that with approximately 50,000 dead in the 10 years of fighting in Viet Nam or the 3 years of war in Korea.
In the 20 years since I left veterinary school, the advances in the understanding and treatment of heart disease has made quantum leaps.
It's a rare doctor, whether veterinarian or physician, who can really keep up with the latest improvements; they're overwhelming. There's no shame in this, it's just fact, and a wonderous one at that. Most of us do try to keep up though.
Death rates due to heart diseases are starting to go down drastically.
I mention all this mainly because it's interesting just to be alive when so much innovation is going on, even though I am definitely on the sidelines, but also to emphasize the need to take your pet to a cardiac specialist, if you can afford it, once your veterinarian detects heart disease.
Speaking of money; you would be able to afford world class veterinary care from cardiac specialists if needed IF YOU HAVE PET HEALTH INSURANCE
Milestones in the treatment
of heart disease:
1628: British physician William Harvey writes a major book "De Motu Cordis" that credits the heart ... not the liver as previously thought ... to be center of the cardiovascular system. He correctly descibed the heart as a pump and the arteries and veins as the circulation system
1809: Scottish anatomist Allan Burns demonstrates the association of high blood pressure with angina (chest pain) and sudden death due to heart attacks (which had previously been attributed to "acts of God") The demonstration is still valid today: put a tourniquet on your bicep and then exercise the arm. It won't be long until extreme fatigue and pain sets in and the arm goes limp. Remove the tourniquet and soon all is well. This mimics what happens to the heart if coronary arteries (arteries supplying the heart with blood and nutrients) are restricted due to clogging (the most common form of severe heart disease today)
1816: French physician Rene Laennec devises the stethoscope which magnifies the cardiac sounds allowing us to detect murmers and valvular diseases. Midwifes were using something similar to a stethoscope to listen for the presence of a fetal heart beat, so I'm reluctant to give Dr Laennec too much credit for his "invention", but the interesting thing about the stethoscope is that he apparently devised it to keep from putting his ear up against the bosom of his female patients, which he thought improper!
(No wonder it took so long to invent the thing)
Note: the above story about Dr Rene Laennec may not be 100% accurate. Other related stories indicate that the good doctor may have been telling a white lie to be polite; maybe he was a fussy sort of person and didn't want to get to close to patients with body odor. Or maybe he had an inkling that physicians that got too close to sick patients might also get the disease. And maybe he shouldn't get too much credit at all; midwives had been using a similar cone device for centuries to listen to fetal heartbeats.
1903: Dutch scientist Willem Einthoven invents the EKG which detects heart attacks and rhythem disorders.
1905: The blood pressure cuff is invented.
1912: American James Herick discovers the association of clotted arteries to heart attacks.
1929: German Werner Forssmann proves that he can insert a catheter into the heart. He receives mostly ridicule at first, but 10 years later he gets the Nobel Prize along with American Doctors Andre Cournand and Dickinson Richards after demonstrating the usefulness of this technique.
1958: Dr Mason Sones of the Cleveland Clinic learns how to insert a catheter into the heart and inject dye that highlighted where blood clots were. This led to coronary artery bypass surgery, saving thousands of lives. This later led to stents instead of surgery and host of other improvements.
More to come...
This is Interesting:
They say that the number 13 is an unlucky number.
This is almost a worldwide belief.
You will usually never see a room numbered 13, or any hotels or motels with a 13th floor.
But, think about this:
13 original colonies,
13 signers of the Declaration of Independence,
13 stripes on our flag,
And on our dollar bill:
13 steps on the Pyramid,
13 letters in the Latin above,
13 letters in "E PLURIBUS UNUM",
13 stars above the Eagle,
13 plumes of feathers on each span of the Eagle's wing,
13 bars on that shield,
13 leaves on the olive branch,
13 fruits, and if you look closely,
13 arrows.
And for minorities:
the 13th Amendment.
