Like other organs, the heart has its ills, some of which are peculiar to it from its formation, some from the special nature of the work it has to do. More of the other parts of the organism are able to get a rest at some time or other, and can make good this rest in repairing the waste that exercise of their functions has occasioned. The heart, at best, can obtain only a very brief respite. A fainting fit gives us an illustration of what happens when the action of the heart is much reduced in frequency, or brought to a pause. This condition is called Syncope. This state may be produced by any violent shock to the nervous system. A large proportion of diseases of the heart depend upon circumstances over which we have no control. In 177 cases of consumption, examined in the Brompton Consumptive Hospital, the heart was found smaller than it should be, in more than one half of the cases. As the heart not only sends the blood through the body, but also receives its nourishment from it, when the food supply is insufficient or of an improper kind, the blood cannot be of the right kind to support the heart in its constant labor. In this way alcohol, by interfering with digestion and destroying the appetite, deprives the heart of what it needs. This is altogether apart from the special influence which alcohol has as a deranger of the heart's action.

Tobacco smoking must come in for its share of blame in producing heart trouble, and on this point there has been the most violent controversy. There is hardly any question but that in the majority of cases, the heart of the constant smoker has lost in muscular strength. For safety, a smoker should take plenty of exercise in the open air, and do his smoking in moderation after meals. Do not smoke on an empty stomach, or use very strong tobacco, or an old foul pipe. By the term hypertrophy of the heart is meant an increase in the size and weight of the organ, due to the development of some one of the elements of its walls. The term is generally used of muscular development only. Almost any cause which increases the action of the heart may bring it about. One of the first effects noticed after taking alcohol into the system, is the increase beating of the heart. Experiments have been made with water and alcohol over periods of twelve days each, in the heart's action. The average number of beats under the alcoholic diet was 13 per cent. more than under the water diet. This was an expenditure of extra energy on the alcohol days sufficient to raise 15.8 tons one foot. After all trace of alcohol had disappeared from the system in the subject of this experiment, the action of the heart was found to be much feebler than usual. A fatty heart is one which is over laid with masses of fat as the external muscles may be in a man who is soft, or out of condition, or one in which the fibres of the muscle itself have been broken down and replaced by fat; this is the true fatty degeneration. "Alcohol is, if not the most powerful, at any rate the most frequent cause of fatty degeneration" of the heart. The walls of the heart may become so weak as to give way, and thus a nepture of the heart is produced. For your peace of mind, I will say that this is almost always a disease of advanced life.