Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX ON ROUTINE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART IN RECRUITS, ETC. This appendix, written during the period of active warfare. is especially arranged to meet the needs of examiners of recruits for the Army; but the same scheme is suitable in judging a man's fitness for national service of any kind. The same tests are recommended in gauging for pension purposes a man's capacity for work; they may also be employed in estimating the fitness of hospital patients for work where a full exercise system is not available. Each man should be subjected to certain simple but sufficiently drastic tests, * and if he fails to pass satisfactorily through any one of these, he is not necessarily to be regarded as unfit, but may come under further and particularly'close examination. The man stands at ease and stripped in front of the examiner. The examiner then notes in health the presence or absence of certain signs in quick and orderly succession. Looking at the man he sees his mouth closed, no pallor of the face, no blueness of the lips, cheeks or ears, no distension of the veins at the foot of the neck, little or no sign of pulse (venous or arterial) in the neck; as his glance falls to the chest he sees no bulging of the precordium, and he notes the even and undisturbed rise and fall of the chest. These points are taken in almost at a glance, and unfailingly when the habit is for a short while cultivated. The examiner * These tests of the cardio-vascular system are readily combined with those necessary to eliminate disease of the lungs. places his whole right hand firmly on the precordium, and should note the approximate rate of the heart beat, its regular action, the absence of excessive or extensive throb or thrill. He defines the heart's chief impulse, .