Etiology of Paroxysmal Tachycardia

Abstract

AT autopsy in a case of paroxysmal tachycardia, a muscle bundle was found connecting the left auricle with the left ventricle. In between attacks, this case showed an electrocardiogram with shortened PQ interval and a slowly rising initial part of the QRS complex. This bundle may have been the cause of the disease¹. The bundle, being more than half a centimetre long in its free portion, was visible to the naked eye in microscope preparations. This structure is entirely different from the structures at the AV border, described by Kent at the end of the last century.