TRAUMA OR STRAIN AND HEART DISEASE-Causal Relationship.

Myocardial infarction and coronary insufficiency are the common conditions involved in workmen's compensation cases based on allegations of cardiac injury. Since coronary disease tends to be a progressive process, punctuated by sudden accidents, it is difficult to determine when a given stress at work may have had a significant effect in producing an infarction. Though there are gaps in our knowledge, considerable information is available indicating the way in which effort or stress may produce a myocardial infarction. Certain states have taken steps to develop more uniformity of medical opinion regarding causal relationship of stress to heart disease, and in other ways have attempted to improve the application of workmen's compensation laws in an attempt to provide fair and prompt compensation to those injured by their work but to discourage abuses of these laws.