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Show . i Advice on Your Health By Morris Fithbein, Editor, Journal American Medical Association When a human being finds that Inflammatory changes have taken place In tht blood vessels which result in failure of the blood to circulate, particularly In the feet, he is confronted with a serious condition. Frequently these columns col-umns have , discussed thromboangiitis thrombo-angiitis obliterans, which is ths technical name for the condition called Buerger's disease. One of the most serious poe-sibls poe-sibls results Is, of course, ths loss of limbs which have to be removed re-moved because the tissues hsve died. e e e The disease mostly affects men between the ages of 30 and 60. At one time It ws found that it affected particularly tha Jewish people and that it waa almost Invariably associated with men. More recently numerous cases have been found among women as well. Out of almost 1000 patients setn in ont of our largest clinics, 28 per cent of the patients were Jewe and 72 per cent were not Jewish. Ttn years ago ths figures showed that 63 per cent of the patients were Jews and 46 per cent wtrt not Jtwith. Ons of ths most Interesting aspect! as-pect! of this condition is tht relationship re-lationship of this disease to those who smoke excessively. These patients were classified as to ths number of clgarets which they smoked daily, varying from five In the first group to 20 or more clgarets clg-arets per day In the fourth group. Some of thoee In the fourth group used as many as 40 clgarets a day. One of ths patients wss in ths habit of smoking 20 cigarets daily before breakfast. Ninety-three Ninety-three per cent of thets pstients were cigaret smokers and as per cent might bt considered as smoking excessively. Moreover, ths authorities found that it was almost Impossible to persuade pstients with this disease dis-ease to stop smoking. see Now It has been established by many studies that smoking does have definite effects on ths blood vessels snd also on the circulation of the blood. Sines the condition is so serious patients frtquently ask what thtlr expectancy la for the future. The physicians who hava recently etudied almost a thousand esses believe that early diagnosis and education of the patient concerning concern-ing the nature of hie disesss combined com-bined with care of the hands and feet will do more to lengthen the Uvea of those pstients than any other factor. NEXT: Care ef the feet |