Paul Dudley White: The Porpoise Heart vs the Athletic Heart

The recent studies on the athletic heart, utilizing modern, noninvasive techniques and sophisticated equipment, as published in this issue (p 158) and elsewhere,1provide additional evidence that the altered cardiovascular findings in such athletes represent physiological rather than pathological changes. The finding in these two studies would have delighted the late Paul Dudley White, the great champion of marathon runners and an early proponent of the concept that the cardiac and circulatory changes that he observed in these runners and other athletes by simple clinical observations were physiological and not pathological. As early as 1917,2White observed the pulse rates of the contenders in the Boston marathon races, both at the beginning and at the end of the races. He was surprised that some had rates above 100 beats per minute at the beginning of the race but properly concluded that such tachycardia was the result of anxiety