happiness and peace and good health, the same as for the year 1963.

P.S.: Daniela is delighted to be in correspondence with your son.

Pardubice, April 21, 1963
Dear Doctor Takaro: Please accept my apologies for not having written to you sooner, but I have been troubled with a flu. Many thanks for the photographs showing your lovely family.

I see now that action of my 53 pulses is a little slow because having passed a flu. I found a slight swelling of the ankles appearing which, however, disappeared under diuretics. I am working now eight or more hours a day, and without flu I am quite well.

We would like to spare my battery, and that's why I do not object to reset the rate of 60 again, according to your written instructions kindly sent to me, specifying the acceleration of pulsing. I have not any instructions now for the regulation in the case of the battery getting discharged.

Myself and the whole of my family are sending you our best regards, always thinking of you and are looking forward to any soon letter from you.

P.S.: Daniela's English is improving rapidly; many thanks to your son for helping in that.

I wrote back soon after that to Dr. Dufek:

Oteen, N.C., May 7, 1963
Dear Doctor Dufek: I hope this letter finds you well. Recently I spoke with Dr. Chardack. He finds in his experience that many pacemakers which he has placed in patients have needed to be replaced after about two years. He recommends that
you get in touch with Dr. Piwnica in Paris, or someone else who is now doing this type of work. Ask to have your pacemaker replaced with a new one before the batteries actually lose their power. If you want to inquire about this, you might wish to write directly to Dr. Chardack about particulars; or I can contact him for you, whichever you prefer. Let me know how things go, and if I can be of any help.

At the beginning of 1964, two letters arrived from Dr. Dufek within the space of a week:

Pardubice, January 22, 1964
Dear Doctor Takaro: The Merck Manual you sent arrived all right. I am very glad of it. It's tabular and will help me in my practice on various occasions. Many thanks.

I have written to Dr. Piwnica in Paris. I shall maybe obtain a favorable reply in a short time, but so far there has been no word.

The pacemaker works very well and I am well, too. I hope that it will work further according to plan. The two years will expire this year. In these days, I observe that the pulse is now down to 50.

Daniela trains every day, and she will
take part in the figure-skating championship in Hradec. Are you interested in figure-skating, too? As for skiing, the snow situation is not favorable this year.

I wish you good health and much success this year.

Pardubice, January 25, 1964
I was delighted to receive your letter dated December 18. This letter incomprehensibly did not arrive until January 23, the day after I wrote to you. Your Christmas greeting is very nice, and you and your family look well in the photograph you sent. What a pity that we cannot send you something similar.

I hope you will in the meantime receive my letter dated three days ago, and I can only repeat my best wishes and my personal regards.

P.S.: My pulse rate is now at 50. I think the batteries may be losing their power. What do you advise?

P.S. 2: Daniela sends her love. She was pleased to have the photograph of your son. She has not heard whether he

"We would like to spare my battery," wrote Dufek, "and that's why I do not object to reset the rate of 60 again, according to your written instructions kindly sent to me. . . . I have not any instructions now for the regulation in the case of the battery getting discharged."

received the one she sent. She won in the last figure-skating contest in Hradec. She is probably too modest to mention it.

Several months passed and then came a thunderbolt—in a letter from Jarmila Dufkova:

Pardubice, December 18, 1964
Dear Doctor Takaro: Owing to the fact that the death announcement of my husband, Dr. Jan Dufek, may not yet have come to you (it was missent by ship mail), I am making you to know that Dr. Dufek died on November 9, 1964. The postmortem examination has shown that there had not been any myocardial infarction and only insignificant fibrosis at the electrodes.