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Among all the ill effects which diphtheria may cause in childhood the damage inflicted on the heart is the most serious. The vast majority of deaths in children due to this disease occur as a result of injury to the cardiovascular system. A few cases of the laryngeal type result in death from mechanical obstruction and some others from pharyngeal paralysis. Practically all the remaining deaths are due to some form of cardiac failure.
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C. Neubauer (1942) studied this question.
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