Nine months of experience on the disability board of General Hospital No. 9, where we have had unusual clinical opportunities for the study of patients suffering from various forms of cardiac disorder, have enabled us to draw some practical conclusions which may be of use to demobilizing boards.
The determination of disability hinges on diagnosis, so we may consider, in some detail, the classification of cases as they appear for discharge.
Functional cardiac disorder may be considered first. In this nomenclature, we have followed the revised manual of the Medical Department in preference to the other terms which are coming into more or less general use, such as "effort syndrome," and "neurocirculatory asthenia." The classification adopted covers various types under this heading, cardiac disorder functional, namely, constitutional inferiority; defective physical development; neurotic type; postinfectious type; postrheumatic type.
In the diagnosis of cases of cardiac disease the history is of the