Principal Inorganic Constituents of Diseased Cardiac Muscle.

Abstract

Analyses have been made on 57 hearts. The muscle segment for analysis was taken from the left ventricle except in the case where the heart was too small. Unfortunately fresh material was not available in the great majority of instances, but was obtained only from hearts that had been preserved in formalin for varying periods of time. Determinations of moisture, ash, P₂O₅, Fe₂O₃, CaO, MgO, K₂O, and Na₂O were made on muscle dried to relatively constant weight at 100° C. The clinical and anatomical diagnosis, as well as the age, sex and color was obtained in every instance and the usual run of cardiac maladies together with complicating diseases is well represented.

The determinations show wide variations between maxima and minima. The highest moisture percentage was found to be 83.23%, the lowest 69.94%. Ash varied between 4.666% and 1.016% P₂O₅ between 2.130% and 0.315% Fe₂O₃ between 0.320% and 0.008% MgO between 0.212% and 0.012% CaO between 0.463% and 0.005% K₂O between 0.904% and 0.065%, and Na₂O between 1.871% and 0.200%.

One would expect the CaO to be high in the aged and in those presenting sclerotic changes. That this is not always the case is shown by the fact that in an instance of a person 81 years old with generalized A.S. aid coronary sclerosis the CaO was only 0.140%, while in another individual of 49 years with coronary sclerosis and an obviously degenerated heart muscle the CaO reached 0.463%. In general, persons dying of tuberculosis had hearts with relatively low calcium content. However, this is not invariably the rule, for one heart from a tuberculosis patient suffering also from luetic infection and aneurysm of the aorta showed 0.1 16% CaO.

There is also marked variability in the K₂O content.