The soldier's heart and the effort syndrome / by Sir Thomas Lewis.

  • Lewis, Thomas, Sir, 1881-1945.
Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The soldier's heart and the effort syndrome / by Sir Thomas Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Some patients related that symptoms previously experienced disappeared early in training to return later on active service; but the number of men who enjoyed a similar early experience and fought without recurrence of symptoms is unknown. The accompanying table shows the previous occupations of soldiers invalided for disease of the heart to be not dissimilar. The high percentage of those formerly employed in light work is to be ascribed, as it is in part in the effort syndrome ” group, to unfitness for heavier work before the men became soldiers. The constitutional factor, physical and nervous. It has been said that many of the cases of “ effort syndrome ” drawn from sedentary occupations were in these occupations because unsuited to heavier work. Of this class many showed defective physical development. In some the chest was long and narrow, or flattened and kyphotic. In others there was general under-development, short stature and meagre build. Among them was an unusual number presenting a respiratory vital capacity below the normal standard. It is often impossible to separate the defects dating from birth from those belonging to the period of growth, and attributable to faulty hygiene in childhood ; but the defects are certainly derived from both hereditary and acquired sources. Similar remarks may be made of the nervous system. Nervous manifestation in the men as a group are common, though again it is often difficult to distinguish between those resulting from hereditary defect and those from acquired weakness. The psychological characteristics of the patients as a group are not those of the average soldier ; many of the