AN ARTICLE CONTRIBUTED TO AN ANNIVERSARY VOLUME IN HONOR OF DOCTOR JOSEPH HERSEY PRATT

Abstract

The cause of hypertrophy of the heart has aroused the interest of pathologists and clinicians for more than three centuries. The hypertrophy of skeletal muscle after increased effort led to the belief that, similarly, cardiac muscle hypertrophied because of increased work. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle in patients with hypertension or aortic insufficiency, and hypertrophy of the right ventricle in pulmonary stenosis or tricuspid valvular disease lent plausibility to this theory. Certain phenomena, however, associated with hypertrophy of the cardiac musculature have not been readily explicable on the basis of the above hypothesis of increased cardiac work. In animals in