Historical Background And Evolution Of Established And Obsolete Terms Used To Characterize Tachycardia

Abstract

During the early phases of development of the science of cardiac arrhythmias, terms coined to describe the sites of origin, mechanism, or some other characteristic of an arrhythmia reflected the prevailing level of understanding. Also, the methodology employed in the study of cardiac arrhythmias was frequently crude and imprecise to the extent that sometimes these studies even lacked the fundamental requisite of ECG recordings. Over the years, conceptual as well as semantic problems have accompanied the growth of our knowledge concerning cardiac arrhythmias. Disagreements about the definitions of cardiac rhythms and tachycardias are sometimes due to the differences in opinion regarding their origin or mechanism, but frequently they are prompted by the desire of investigators to be original. Despite the periodic recommendations by various authorities to modify and standardize the nomenclature of cardiac arrhythmias, the old terms continue to influence modern electrocardiography [64H, 54R, 43S, 256S].