THE EFFECT OF HEART MUSCLE DISEASE ON THE ELECTROCARDIOGRAM

Abstract

Pathologists and clinicians have long been engaged in the correlation of the symptoms and signs of heart failure with the condition of the heart as found at necropsy. With the advent of the electrocardiograph, investigators promptly began to make comparisons between the normal and abnormal function of the heart and the electrical current produced by that organ. This correlation has led to a quite thorough understanding of the mechanism of cardiac arrhythmia. The correlation of structural disease of the heart with abnormalities of the electrocardiogram has proceeded more slowly, and it has been our purpose to report in detail a series of cases in which the gross and microscopic appearance of the ventricular muscle is compared with the ventricular complexes of the electrocardiogram. We are endeavoring to decide whether an abnormal ventricular complex must mean myocardial disease and whether a normal ventricular complex will be produced by only a normal