Emotions and Bodily Changes

artery sclerosis. Many of the patients also showed an elevated blood uric level, thus further emphasizing the variety of metabolic derangements involved in this important disease. The role of habits and certain life situations in the genesis of coronary heart disease could not be ascertained from the authors' data. The coronary heart disease group did consume more tobacco than the control group, however, and more recent statistical studies on a very large scale do implicate smoking in the etiology of this disease. Among the unsolved problems there remain the r6le of the thyroid and adrenal glands in the genesis of coronary heart disease. That these studies are necessarily an elaboration of already existing ideas on the genesis of coronary heart disease is merely a recognition of the limitations imposed on any study by the method of statistical analysis. This book is a model of the permissibility and limitations of statistical approach in the study of clinical problems. Even though new clues have not been uncovered, the old ones' have certainly received extensive study. But the main purpose of the book, correct preselection of coronary-prone patients, and a definite form of replacement or adjuvant therapy that could be effective in delaying or preventing the onset of the disease, remains unrealized. The authors appreciate that adequate understanding of the nature and causes of coronary heart disease is the key to their problem and must precede the question of preselection and therapy. Perhaps the solution of the problem of coronary heart disease will be found, not by a massive statistical assault, but though the still, small voice out of the experimental laboratory.