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34 THE HARVEIAN ORATION, 1904 to the patient, and also if the hope of perfect recovery be held out to him through the agency of prolonged rest, he will agree to give this method a fair trial. Such, at least, has been my experience.

For twenty years continuously this method has been carried out. The results have been striking. The comparative absence of permanent heart disease after endocarditis has been in marked contrast to its frequency prior to the adoption of the treatment by rest. So striking indeed is the change that I confess it now seems to me that it would be an immoral act on my part to omit these measures in any recent case of endocardial disease.

If we make it a rule to watch carefully for incipient valvulitis and if, when we find it, we secure for the heart prolonged rest, I believe that it is in our power to diminish, in a most material degree, the frequency of chronic valvular disease of the heart.

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