1. The subject of cardiac failure is briefly discussed from the points of view of definition, classification and clinical recognition. 2. A short statistical study is presented of a series of 1281 cases of cardiac failure from a total of 1860 cases heart disease. Cardiac failure cases accounted for 68.8% of cases heart-disease and 4.8% of all medical cases admitted. 3. An aetiological grouping, is presented of our cases of cardiac failure, 31.3% of our cases belong to the hypertensive coronary group, 29.3% to the rheumatic group, 11.7% to syphilitic group and 9.3% to the pulmonary group. 4. The percentage incidence of cardiac failure is determined for each aetiological group of heart disease. In the rheumatic group of heart cases, 81.5% display failure. The corresponding incidence of failure for the hypertensive-coronary group is 64.8%, for the pulmonary group 64% and for the syphilitic group 62.5%. 5. 16.6% of all failure cases are of left-ventricular type, 27.9% of the right-ventricular type and 55.5% are of the so-called "mixed" or "universal" variety of failure. An aetiological grouping is presented of each variety of cardiac failure. 6. The death-rate for all cases of failure is 27.5%. The death-rate is highest (100%) in the bacterial group, 44.6% for the pulmonary group, 31.3% for the syphilitic group, 23.2% for the rheumatic group and only 18.3% for the hypertensive-coronary group.