Guinea Pig for Heart Study

Dr. Alden G. Vaughan '17 has enlisted in the fight against heart disease, but not in the familiar ranks of the fund-raiser or community organizer. He will serve as a subject in a long-range study of heart ailments at the University of Minnesota. The professor of ancient languages and humanities at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, considers himself "very lucky" to be part of the experiment along with 300 business and professional men from 45 to 54 years old and 200 Minnesota undergraduates.

At least once a year for the next five years, the Middleboro, Mass., native will report to Minnesota's laboratory of physiological hygiene for testing and examination. Data on his personality, the emotional strains and the tensions under which he lives, and his general physical health are now on file there.

Although all the subjects of the experimental program are in normal health, insurance surance statistics make it certain that some of this number will develop a heart disease within a few years. The individual files on their mental and physical health compiled from the annual examinations should then reveal the basic information that the program is seeking.

Answers to the following questions may eventually defeat the nation's number one killer: Can the development of a heart ailment be detected when the person is still well? What habits of diet and physical activity are favorable to prevent or delay these diseases? What are the effects of worry and tension?

Dr. Vaughan has devoted more than a quarter of a century to the teaching profession. Before he joined the Centre College faculty in 1948, he taught Latin at the Blake School for Boys in Minneapolis. From 1938 to 1942, he was an instructor in the classical languages at Brown University.