WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN THE TREATMENT OF HEART DISEASES*

IT is not out of place now and then to take stock of what we can expect at the time as the maximum hope in the treatment of diseases of the heart. Especially is this an encouraging process when we bring into focus the tre-mendous advances that have been made in this field in the last quarter of a century. Diseases which were long thought to be beyond relief are now being treated by surgical and medical means with the appearance of cure. Congenital Heart Disease. It is fitting that I should mention congenital heart disease first. Until recently nothing corrective could be done in the treatment of patients suffering from these defects. However, a new field was explored and opened when Gross *»2'3 daringly conceived and executed the operation of ligation of a patent ductus arteriosus and apparently re-stored the circulation to a normal status. In this defect there is flow of blood from aorta to pulmonary artery by way of a patent ductus arteriosus. Ample cases have been subjected to this procedure to indicate that it can be carried out by competent surgeons with a minimum of mortality. Whe