Resting heart rate as a cardiovascular risk factor
Evidence and implications for clinical practice
Stevo Julius, Paolo Palatini
Prezzo 30,00 €
From ancient times in China, Egypt and Middle East through classic
Greek and Roman eras until a few centuries ago, healers and physicians
used the pulse as the most important method of assessing a person’s
health. They appreciated the association of tachycardia with serious
diseases and understood that regardless of whether the underlying
cause was infection, pneumonia, anemia or heart failure, the faster the
heart rate the poorer was a patient’s chance of survival. Besides of feeling
the pulse the old time practitioners knew only few other objective
signs of disease. Taking the temperature, observing the color of the
skin, and analyzing the breathing were helpful but in the absence of
laboratory tests our colleagues of yore were unable to confirm their diagnoses.
Of necessity they became artists free to use experience, imagination
and a “feel of the patient” to paint a picture of the disease.
Actually it was not very important whether they were right or wrong
because these old doctors were left in total darkness about how to treat
a disease. There were all sorts of untested “logical” theories of why a
medication may be helpful. Because of the similarity of its color to that
of the blood the red wine was used for anemia and since the blood may
have been poisoned, copious bleeding by venipuncture or leeches was
recommended for just about every disease....