I NDICATION FOR DIGITALIZATION of patients with cardiovascular disease has long been the presence of manifest heart failure or some specific arrhythmias, atrial flutter, atrial fibrillation and sometimes other atrial tachycardias. The presence of heart disease as such has not been thought to be sufficient indication to start a patient on digitalis therapy, mostly for two reasons. First, because...

The effect of intracarotid injections of ouabain (25.0 ng) or acetylstrophanthidin (1.56 tig) on feline carotid sinus baroreceptors was evaluated using an isolated perfused carotid sinus preparation. The effects of the drugs on baroreceptor activity were determined by monitoring carotid sinus nerve activity and systemic arterial blood pressure. Administration of either drug to the isolated caro...

• Although, it is assumed that digitalis glycosides are relatively ineffective in heart failure and atrial fibrillation associated with disorders of thyroid gland function," there is little experimental work to support this belief. Frye and Braunwald observed that administration of triiodothyronine to euthyroid and hypothyroid patients with chronic atrial fibrillation increased the dose of card...

IN 1963 a study was published from our laboratory concerning cardiac performance during exercise before and after conversion from atrial fibrillation to sinus rhythm.' All subjects were receiving digitalis at the time of conversion. One of the findings of that study was a markedly low heart rate at exercise in sinus rhythm, much lower than expected for a group of subjects with a comparable degr...

ATRIAL TACHYCARDIA with atrioventricular block was first described by Sir Thomas Lewis in 1909.1 In recent years, Lown, Levine, and co-workers2-5 have emphasized the importance of digitalis intoxication as a cause of this arrhythmia. Other authors have also supported this concept.6' 7 Two large series describing the arrhythmia were published in 1943. Barker and coworkers8 found that digitalis w...