GREAT REDUCTION IN HEART SIZE ATTENDING THE CLEARING OF CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE IN A MAN WITH HYPERTENSIVE AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE

T H E treatment of many patients with cardiac dropsy has been discouraging in the past in spite of the use of digitalis and mercurial diuretics which oftentimes give striking temporary improvement. In the majority of patients with con-gestive failure resulting from hypertensive and coronary heart disease, however, experience has shown that edema and dyspnea return with monotonous regularity even though activities are kept at a minimum. In the past few years the im-portance of a low sodium dietary intake has become increasingly apparent as a means of preventing the re-appearance of all the signs of congestive heart failure, particularly among the patients writh coronary and/or hypertensive heart disease. We wish to present the following case report demonstrating what may be ac-complished in certain patients who on initial examination show severe cardiac dropsy. This report demonstrates the reversibility of symptomatic heart disease