SAVING THE HEART by Dr. C. W. Lyman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 16, 1896

SAVING THE HEART.

By Dr. C. W. Lyman

BY DR. C. W. LYMAN.

Hurry and worry are a pair of evils that wear out hearts early in life. To take a cup of coffee, a chop, and a roll at breakfast, to make a train to town, to begin to think on business all the way in, to go into full swing when the office is reached, stopping but a moment for lunch, to make a train home at five o’clock, then to eat a hearty meal, ending with coffee or tea, and then to go out for the evening—here is presented a common daily routine in city and suburban life. This means that the heart is kept going at high tension for say fifteen hours at a stretch. A young man ages fast in this sort of life, and often, when in the forties, he can not run two blocks’ distance without distressing palpitation and loss of breath.

Continuous worry acts on the heart in the same way as incessant hurry, only if anything more injuriously. Large numbers of the victims of high-pressure civilization (which commonly means, so far as the heart is concerned, too long hours of work and amusement, stimulation, and some indiscretions at table) come to a still more serious end without knowing what it is. Between the ages of forty and fifty they develop fatty degenerations of the heart and arteries. Those tissues that are being worked past endurance break down, and are replaced by an inferior tissue, namely, fat. These persons are thenceforth crippled for life, and become old, in both appearance and reality.

Corsets and tight vests cramp the chest, and so the heart and its motions. Thus they increase its work in keeping the blood moving. A person who bends over a desk till he becomes narrow-chested, brings about the same result in another way.

Let us save our hearts from each and all of these common abuses. A strong heart action throughout life is too much of an essential to be parted with. Hearts that have become weak can be made stronger. Good, new muscular tissue can be made to grow in them. But it is a careful process that does it, named after the German who introduced it, Oertel. It consists in putting the person on a very limited and simple diet for some days. Then on the same carefully restricted diet, daily walks are taken up the side of a declivity, with many stops, but going a few feet farther each day. Any gentle and graduated exercise would do. The pure and somewhat rarified air of a mountain side, as advised by Oertel, with the views and the stillness of such a place, give it advantages, on the whole.

It is of great moment in saving and resting the heart that the supper should be a light one, so at least that at bedtime the stomach shall have come to rest. A loaded stomach keeps the heart at high tension far into the night, and thus its one period of relative let-up is infringed upon. This is found to count seriously even with very strong men, Hence the rigidity with which athletes in training are restricted in their evening meal. The trainers have found it indispensable to the success of their men. Why should not other men and women who mean to succeed in the race?—The Voice.