UNCOMPLICATED AURICULAR FIBRILLATION AND AURICULAR FLUTTER

Abstract

Auricular fibrillation and auricular flutter are common and well recognized disorders of cardiac rhythm. Less well appreciated, however, is their occurrence in persons without other signs of cardiac disease. To emphasize the frequency of this occurrence and to demonstrate its good prognosis constitute the main objects of the present communication. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Premature beats¹and paroxysmal tachycardia²have long been known to occur in healthy persons. That auricular fibrillation may arise in a heart previously healthy was first pointed out by Gossage and Hicks³in 1913, although Fox⁴and Mackenzie⁵a few years before noted no evidence of cardiac disease in several of their cases. Since these early communications there have appeared in the literature numerous reports of auricular fibrillation occurring in persons with a clinically normal heart as a result of varied stimuli—tixic, traumatic and reflex—and without any obvious cause. The following