INCIDENCE AND VARIETY OF HEART DISEASE IN SCHOOL CHILDREN OF SAN FRANCISCO

Abstract

The increasing death rate from heart disease, whether real or apparent, has led to much mass investigation¹and to the appearance of numerous articles on the subject. The more critically one scans such articles, the more convinced one becomes that, with the exception of syphilitic heart disease, very little is known about the etiology, prevention or prognosis in cardiac disease. A determination of the incidence of heart disease must be one of the important methods of approaching a solution of the problem. The earlier articles have given the incidence in hospital and clinical admissions,²and more recently there have been surveys of groups of employees³and of school children.⁴In general, about 1.5 to 2 per cent of the population seem to be suffering from heart disease. By the time the patient seeks the physician or the clinic, the condition is already well established, so that