A statistical study of 1281 cases of congestive cardiac failure or myocardial insufficiency in India.

1. The subject of cardiac failure is briefly discussed from the points of view of definition, classification and clinical recognition. 2. A short statistical study is presented of a series of 1281 cases of cardiac failure from a total of 1860 cases heart disease. Cardiac failure cases accounted for 68.8% of cases heart-disease and 4.8% of all medical cases admitted. 3. An aetiological grouping, is presented of our cases of cardiac failure, 31.3% of our cases belong to the hypertensive coronary group, 29.3% to the rheumatic group, 11.7% to syphilitic group and 9.3% to the pulmonary group. 4. The percentage incidence of cardiac failure is determined for each aetiological group of heart disease. In the rheumatic group of heart cases, 81.5% display failure. The corresponding incidence of failure for the hypertensive-coronary group is 64.8%, for the pulmonary group 64% and for the syphilitic group 62.5%. 5. 16.6% of all failure cases are of left-ventricular type, 27.9% of the right-ventricular type and 55.5% are of the so-called "mixed" or "universal" variety of failure. An aetiological grouping is presented of each variety of cardiac failure. 6. The death-rate for all cases of failure is 27.5%. The death-rate is highest (100%) in the bacterial group, 44.6% for the pulmonary group, 31.3% for the syphilitic group, 23.2% for the rheumatic group and only 18.3% for the hypertensive-coronary group.