Hope for Hearts

              Hope for Hearts
Heart disease is the biggest killer in
Caddo Parish, in Louisiana and in the
nation. That's why the thousands of
dollars given by Louisianians in annual
Heart Fund drives—either by letter or
t h r o u g h door-to-door solicitation—is
being poured steadily into research and
education around the state.
Heart Fund campaigns, climaxed by
Heart Sunday residential drives, are
modest campaigns. The Caddo Parish
goal this year is only about $28,000—a
per capita of less than 15 cents per
person. The Fund raises its goal only
through letters and door-to-door volun-teers.
Two thousand of the latter will
spread out over , Caddo this Sunday.
Traditionally, the bulk of the goal is
raised by the dimes and dollars collected
by these ladies.
They march all over Louisiana.
Since 1949, more than a million of these
free-will dollars have been spent on
research by scientists at Tulane, LSU and
in the leading hospitals and laboratories
of the state. Research has brought about
steady improvement in surgery, diagno-sis,
drug therapy, and preventive tech-niques.
The LSU-Shreveport School of Medi-cine
will share in the research grants
made by the Louisiana Heart Association.
Heart research in the new school will
probably reach $50,000 or $100,000
yearly from gifts made by the public to
the association.
In addition to research, Heart gifts
also finance educational programs for
doctors, nurses and the public, bringing
them the latest in research information
on diseases of the heart and blood
vessels-—on strokes, high blood pressure
and related ailments.
Such afflictions took 1,085 lives in
the parish last year—accounting for
more than 51 per cent of all deaths. The
percentage holds steady for the state and
the nation, too. In recent years, volunteer
gifts totalling more than $120 million
have attacked the national problem of
heart disease. Only consider: every other
death is from heart disease. Neither a
sizeable bank account or a good home
address is any protection. No family is
immune.
The ladies of the Pilot Club, which
sponsors Heart Sunday, share, along with
the research scientists, part of the credit
for the fact that dramatic gains have
been made in controlling high blood
pressure, treating and p r e v e n t i n g
strokes, protecting children against rheu-matic
fever and correcting inborn heart
defects through surgery.
Heart deaths have dropped since
1950 in every category from infancy to
retirement age. For example, the death
rate among men 45-64 has declined in
those 17 years by 7 per cent—even
though heart attacks in this group have
increased by five per cent. Obviously,
more such men survive strokes than they
did in 1950.
Yet 14 million adults suffer from
heart disease and another 7 million have
high blood pressure. Added to this, there
are probably another 13 million Ameri-cans
who have heart disease of some kind
that isn't documented. Because of these
statistics, heart disease still kills more
Americans each year than all other
causes combined—about one million
people.
Your Heart Fund volunteer is work-ing
to lower that figure when she rings
your doorbell and asks for a contribu-tion.
Her slogan is Give, so more will live.
Make your contribution a generous one.
If you're missed, mail your gift to Caddo
Parish Heart Fund, P.O. Box 1031,
Shreveport.