TRANSIENT AURICULAR FIBRILLATION

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Auricular fibrillation is now firmly established as the disturbance of the cardiac mechanism causing the absolutely irregular pulse, a very frequent clinical phenomenon and the most usual type of cardiac irregularity observed in patients with heart disease. The nature of the fibrillary process has been interpreted in various ways, such as being the result of multiple stimulus formation in various parts of the cardiac musculature (Lewis1) and as a lowering of the refractory phase of the various cardiac muscle bundles (Rothberger and Winterberg2). The theory of Garrey3rests, however, on a firmer experimental basis than any other that had been advanced. He considers that fibrillary contractions of the heart muscle depend on the establishment within the muscularture of multiple regions of block or reduced conductivity. The impulses thus blocked or delayed take abnormal and circuitous paths, and return to the same portion of the muscle after the

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: