An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”
16058 entries, 14142 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: November 9, 2024
Permanent Link for Entry #14484
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Cardiac failure and sudden death.Brit. med. J., 1, 6-8, 1889."Physiologists and physicians had proposed various theories to explain transient and fatal cardiac standstill in animals and humans who were apparently healthy. MacWilliam defined two distinct mechanisms depending on whether recovery was possible. He offered experimental proof that “fibrillar contraction” (later termed ventricular fibrillation) was the cause of irreversible cessation of the heartbeat and sudden death. Writing in 1889, he argued that 'Sudden cardiac failure does not usually take the form of a simple ventricular standstill in diastole...It assumes, on the contrary, the form of violent, though irregular and incoordinated, manifestation of ventricular energy. Instead of quiescence, there is a tumultuous activity, irregular in its character and wholly ineffective as regards its results.'
"He explained that a variety of pathological conditions could predispose to ventricular fibrillation, including “degenerative changes of a fatty or fibroid nature in the muscular walls” and “diseased conditions...of the coronary arteries.” MacWilliam demonstrated that the fundamental electrophysiologic properties of the hearts of cold-blooded amphibians could be reproduced in mammals. He also extended the time an isolated mammalian heart preparation remained viable by combining artificial ventilation and rhythmic manual compression of the ventricles with the administration of pilocarpine.10 In 1889, MacWilliam published an article in The British Medical Journal announcing his conviction 'that ventricular fibrillation rather than cardiac standstill (asystole) was the cause of many, if not most cases of sudden death in humans' (Silverman & Fye, "John A. MacWilliam: Scotish pioneer of cardiac electrophysiology," Clin. Cardiol, 29 (2006) 90-92.)
Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR PHYSIOLOGY › Cardiac Electrophysiology, DEATH & DYING Permalink: www.historyofmedicine.com/id/14484 |