Is Angina Preventable?

Abstract

Last week I looked through some of the earlier records of the hospital where you, Sir, and I and most of us here had our training. You may like to know that the interest in ischaemic heart disease which Lauder Brunton established 100 years ago is being actively perpetuated in the same ward. The area where we established the first major Coronary Care Unit in Britain a year ago is very probably the same as that where young Brunton made his classical observation concerning the use of nitride of amyl.

Prevention of ischaemic heart disease, whether we are considering angina or myocardial infarction, must be taken to mean the prevention of the premature onset of the disease. Death from a heart attack at an advanced age would not necessarily seem undesirable.