Tracing Atrial Fibrillation — 100 Years

Today, there is talk about an epidemic of atrial fibrillation. Dr. Bruce Fye recounts the clues that led clinical investigators to propose that atrial fibrillation was a common arrhythmia in patients with cardiac disease. Today, there is talk about an epidemic of atrial fibrillation, and physicians caring for patients with this common arrhythmia face a bewildering array of treatment options. Contrast this situation with that of 1900, when no one understood the arrhythmia's mechanism or realized that it occurred in humans. One hundred years ago, in 1906, two publications — one from the Netherlands and the other from the United States — revealed that the arrhythmia, then called “auricular fibrillation,” did indeed affect humans, that it was in fact common in patients with heart disease, and that it could be identified by means of . . .