Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1914 — ONE OF NATURE’S WONDERS [ARTICLE]

ONE OF NATURE’S WONDERS

Heart Development in the Child Has Always Interested Students of ' Biology. What the editor of the Medical Record regards as one of the wonders of blplogy is the manner of the development of the heart of the child. He writes as follows regarding an investigation by a continental physician: “One of the happiest adaptations of nature is found In the functional peculiarities of the infantile heart. From tiie embryological viewpoint alone, the evolution of this organ, from a simple pulsating tube to a complicated fourchambered pump, is one of the wonders of biology. An interesting philosophical inquiry Into the special manner in which the heart of the child is adapted to the needs of the growing

organism Is presented by Armbruster In the Zentralblatt fur Kinderheilkunde, August 1,1914. “He notes that the increased rate of the heart beat In early life diminishes the burden of the heart in the following manner: the amount of blood pumped at each Impulse is correspondingly smaller, the aspirating force of the right heart is increased, and the rapidly developing heart muscle is more effectively nourished. The author attributes the relative immuni-. ty of very young children to infectious diseases to the rapidity with which the blood flows through the arteries, which rapidity makes it difficult for microorganisms to gain a foothold in the blood stream.”