Even where the heart valves have been seriously attacked, as in rheumatism, they will often recover almost completely if you keep at rest, and your heart is not overtaxed by the strain of heavy, muscular work, before it has entirely recovered.

Ten days' "taking it easy" after a severe cold, or a bad sore throat, may save you a serious strain upon the heart, from which you might be months or even years in recovering.
But even where serious damage has been done to the heart, so that one of its valves leaks badly, nature is not at the end of her resources.

She simply sets to work to build up and strengthen and thicken the heart muscle until it is strong enough to overcome the defect and pump blood enough to keep the body properly supplied--just as, if you are working with a leaky pump, you will have to pump harder and faster in order to keep a good stream of water flowing.

It is astonishing how completely she will make good the loss of even a considerable part of a valve.
Doctors no longer forbid patients with heart disease to take exercise, but set them at carefully planned exercise in the open air, particularly walking and hill-climbing; at the same time feeding them well, so as to assist nature in building up and strengthening the heart muscle until it can overcome the defect.

In this way, they may live, with reasonable care, ten, fifteen, or twenty years--often, in fact, until they die of something else.
Don't worry about your heart if it should happen to palpitate, or take a "hop-skip-and-jump" occasionally.