Heartbeats

The cardioscope, an instrument which makes it possible to see inside a beating heart, has been perfected by Dr. Duff S. Allen, a young surgical assistant at Washington University, St. Louis, who reported his work at the annual meeting of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons, Chicago.

The device is in reality a small microscope, about the size of a pocket flashlight, with a strong lens at one end and a powerful light at the other. A small incision is made directly over the heart, and the cardioscope inserted. It enables the surgeon to see the heart valves, greatly magnified, while the heart is functioning, without injury to the organ. It will be particularly valuable in eases of widening or narrowing of the valves, in which cases the valves are either opened by cutting or are tied with ligatures, says Dr. Howard Lilienthal, of Cornell Medical School, New York, retiring president of the heart doctors.

Progress in thoracic (chest) surgery has been phenomenal within the past few years, says Dr. Lilienthal. The development of adrenalin, the invention of the cardiograph (for recording heart action on smoked paper), the use of the phonograph to magnify stethoscopic sounds, electric photography of the heart in operation and other innovations have contributed to this result. But the increase of heart strain in our headlong urban life is giving the medical and surgical profession serious cause for worry. Organic diseases of the heart are now the largest single cause of death in the registration area of the United States, having passed both tuberculosis and pneumonia in the last two decades, with 149.7 per 100,000 population (1920). The same tendency is observed in England and other advanced countries. Heart disease may be called, par excellence, the disease of civilization.