THE OCCURRENCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ELECTROCARDIOGRAMS OF LOW VOLTAGE

Abstract

The increasing use of the electrocardiograph in the clinical study of heart disease has brought forth many valuable graphic signs in the identification and the corroboration of myocardial disease, and also important facts bearing on prognosis. From time to time various observers have called attention to the relationship of electrocardiograms of low voltage to disease of the myocardium (Carter,¹ Pardee and Master,² Lutembacher,³ White and Burwell,⁴ Clerc and Bascourret,⁵ Oppenheimer and Rothschild⁶). Low voltage electrocardiograms have been recorded in patients with pericardial effusions, returning to normal after paracentesis and subsequent improvement in the patient's condition. Oppenheimer and Mann⁷ also called attention to them in connection with extensive pericardial and pleuropericardial effusions. The occurrence of low voltage records in myxedema and cretinism has been described by Zondek⁸ and by Thacher and White.⁹ A recent report by Sprague and White¹⁰ was based on fifty-seven cases observed during eleven years at the Massachusetts