Understanding Heart Disease

Diseases of the heart are the leading cause of death in the Western world. Health professionals and the general public alike eagerly watch advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart disease. Yet the more spectacular aspects of medical progress in the field are often reported prematurely and their potential benefits exaggerated.

Written in clear, accessible language, this book presents an authoritative and balanced picture of how heart diseases are recognized and managed. From his many years of experience, Dr. Selzer believes a well-informed patient can cooperate more successfully with a physician, and his book includes information vital to anyone confronting heart problems and cardiac emergencies.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Arthur Selzer, M.D., served for twenty-five years as Chief of Cardiology at the Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco, where he continues to be active. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California School of Medicine and Clinical Professor Emeritus at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Selzer is the author of three books, including The Heart: Its Function in Health and Disease (California, 1966), and more than two hundred scientific articles, including the section on the circulation of blood in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.