This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Samuel A. Levine, M.D.; Bernard Lown, M.D.

J Am Med Assoc. 1952;148(16):1365-1369.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Rest for a diseased organ, be it a fractured limb or a tuberculous lung, is a therapeutic principle validated by clinical experience. It is believed that activity, with its complex biochemical and physical demands, diverts from the reparative process the available energy essential for optimal healing. When the heart is diseased, the only feasible application of the principle of rest is the attempted diminution of the cardiac load. Rest in bed has been traditionally regarded as tantamount to optimal rest for the heart. This is the practice in congestive heart failure and finds its most rigid application in acute coronary thrombosis, when the patient is placed flat in bed for three to six weeks.¹

It has been our view that recumbency in bed affords less rest to the heart than the sedentary position in a chair with the feet down.² The recumbent position permits maximal venous return from . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Boston

From the Medical Clinic of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

Footnotes
This study was aided in part by a United States Public Health grant (H 445).

Read before the Association of American Physicians, Atlantic City, N. J., May 1, 1951.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?