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Show Stroke is not a new disease This is one of a series of health columns about your heart, prepared by the Utah Heart Association and published publish-ed by this newspaper as a public service. To appreciate how fast modern mod-ern medical research is moving glance at the historical timetable time-table of any disease stroke for example. Stroke is not a new disease. In the Old Testament, is is recorded re-corded that Nabal became as stone for 10 days before he died. Two thousand years later, in 1658, a German scientist was the first to discover that a stroke could be .caused by brain hemorrhage. Today, three centuries after that discovery, we know that, in addition to hemorrhage, other kinds of interference in-terference with the blood supply sup-ply to the brain also cause stroke. Some strokes come on without with-out warning. These strokes are sometimes due to cerebral cere-bral hemorrhage that is, the rupture of a blood vessel, with blood pouring into delicate deli-cate brain tissue. By far the largest number of strokes are caused by clots which clog arteries and block the blood supply to the brain. In persons considered to be susceptible to such strokes, doctors may prescribe anticoagulant antico-agulant drugs which help prevent pre-vent clot formation. A new concept of how stroke develops is based on recent evidence that from 25 to 40 of strokes may result from blockage of arteries in the neck which lead to the brain, rather than of arteries iwithin the brain itself. I Abnormal vibrations or unusual un-usual sounds thus detected may suggest that an obstruction is developing which could event ually result in a stroke. It is now possible for surgeons actually act-ually to remove such obstructions obstruc-tions or put in an artery graft as a bypass channel for the blood. In this way an impending im-pending stroke may be prevented pre-vented in some instances. Other methods the doctor uses in making his diagnosis ot stroke include examination of spinal fluid, which may help to distinguish between the hemorrhage and clot-caused types of stroke. ' We can expect that further research increased in scope and intensity will uncover more ways to help even larger numbers of stroke patients. A smart fruit seller makes it a point to pack his boxes so he can turn them up - side -down before the customer. Small throw rugs that have a tendency to slip along the floor can be cured by attaching attach-ing several jar rubbers to the underside or by shellacking the reverse side. |