Sometimes simple hypertrophy of the left ventricle occurs from various kinds of conditions that increase the peripheral circulation. It may occur from oversmoking, from the mertisc of coffee aid tea, from certain kinds of physical labor, or from high tension mental work. It is a part of the story of hypertension. Many times such patients, as well as occasionally trained athletes, and sometimes patients with arteriosclerosis or chronic interstitial nephritis complain of unpleasant throbbing sensations of the heart added to these sensations are a feeling of fulness in the head, flushing of the face, and possibly dizziness--all symptoms not only of hypertension but of too great cardiac activity. Various drugs used to stimulate the heart may cause this condition; when digitalis is given and is not indicated or is given in overdosage, these symptoms occur. The treatment is simply to lower the diet, cause catharsis, give hot baths, stop the tobacco, tea and coffee, stop the drinking of large amounts of liquid at any one time, and administer bromids and perhaps nitroglycerin, when all the symptoms of simple hypertrophy will, temporarily at least, disappear. If the heart is enlarged from hypertrophy, if it is the right ventricle that is the most hypertrophied, the apex is not only pushed to the left, but the beat may be rather diffuse, as the enlarged right ventricle will prevent the apex from acting close to the surface of the chest. If the left ventricle is the most hypertrophied, the apex is also to the left, but the impact is very decided and the aortic closure is accentuated. SIMPLE DILATATION The term "simple dilatation" may be applied to the dilatation of one or both ventricles when there is no valvular lesion and when the condition may not be called broken compensation. The compensation has been sufficiently discussed. Dilatation of the heart occurs when there is increased resistance to the outflow of the blood front the ventricle, or when the ventricle is overfilled with blood and the muscular wall is unable to compete with the increased work thrown on it. In other words, it may be weakened by myocarditis or fatty degeneration; or it may be a normal heart that has sustained a strain; or it may be a hypertrophied heart that has become weakened. Heart strain is of frequent occurrence. It occurs in young men from severe athletic effort; it occurs in older persons from some severe muscle strain, and it may even occur from so simple an effort as rapid walking by one who is otherwise diseased and whose heart is unable to sustain even this extra work. All of the conditions which have been enumerated as causing simple hypertrophy may have dilatation as a sequence.