Third Discussion

Abstract

Professor Donald: The speakers have mentioned a number of factors, blood pressure, obesity and so on, but neither of them mentioned the question of family incidence of this disease which some of us hope, with good family histories might be favourable.

Dr. Robertson: I wonder if Professor Morris or Dr. Oliver has correlated the number of miles driven in motor cars to the incidence of coronary heart disease, and particularly driving in traffic as opposed to driving on the open road; after all, the incidence of this modern epidemic roughly correlates to the rise of the motor car. I was very interested in a recent article which described a test in which a cardiotachometer was attached to the driver of a motor car and whilst waiting at the lights a pulse of 150-200 was recorded; this was quite usual.