Ziegler draws together in this pamphlet the thesis he has been putting forward in various papers: that the increase during this last century in the incidence of heart disease, in particular angina pectoris and cardiac infarct, has an important psychosomatic significance. To call them ‘stress’ illnesses only emphasizes the extroverted (exogenous) point of view; he prefers to underline the importance of the endogenous factors, the unconscious ‘shadow’ elements that present-day civilized men accumulate, above all the undervaluation of emotions and of spiritual meaning. If denied, he says, these factors become inner murderers and heart disease a kind of suicide. He deploys his argument persuasively.