History of atrial fibrillation

Abstract

The authors review the history of atrial fibrillation, the most frequent clinically observed cardiac arrhythmia. A French "clinicopathologist", Jean Baptist de Sénac (1693-1770), was the first who assumed a correlation between "rebellious palpitation" and a stenosis of the mitral valve. From an analysis of simultaneously recorded arterial and venous pressure curves, the Scottish Sir James Mackenzie (1853-1925) demonstrated that a presystolic a wave cannot be seen on the jugular phlebogram during "pulsus irregularis perpetuus". The first human ECG depicting atrial fibrillation was published by Willem Einthoven (1860-1927) in 1906. The proof of a direct connection between absolute arrhythmia and auricular fibrillation was established by two Viennese physicians, Rothberger and Winterberg. The major discoveries relating to the pathomechanism and the clinical features of atrial fibrillation in the 20(th) century stemmed from the scientific activities of Karel Frederik Wenckebach, Sir Thomas Lewis, Gordon Moe, and Maurits Allessie.