Heart hurry : a clinical study / by Edward Blake.

  • Blake, Edward T. (Edward Thomas), 1842-1905.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heart hurry : a clinical study / by Edward Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Palpitation. Palpitation, on the other hand, causes grave discomfort. It therefore resembles the activity with which, after quickening, the babe reminds its mother at one blow both of its own existence and of her possession of sensory fila¬ ments in the abdominal wall. Of palpitation, nearly always combined with irregularity, the patient is perfectly conscious. Again, palpitation is essentially temporary, while tachycardia may persist for months, nay even for years. Another characteristic of palpitation is that, unlike tachycardia, it does not extend to the smaller arteries. Tremor Cordis Is not, like palpitation, related to emotional conditions. Physiologically speaking, tremor is an acute temporary tachycardia. It has been described as the antithesis of palpitation, for in tremor the heart does not contract enough, whilst in palpitation it contracts too quickly and too forcibly. The heart, instead of wildly throbbing as if it would burst through the chest wall, trembles like a wind-shaken leaf, to quote the graphic description of Balfour, in his well known work on “ The Senile Heart.” Though tremor differs so much from palpitation in its mechanism, yet pathologically it is much more nearly allied to palpitation than to tachycardia. The owner of the tremulous heart is painfully conscious of its possession. The sensation involved in tremor is extremely discon¬ certing. Sir Walter Scott, who was prone to this disease in earlier life, says of it “ I know it is nothing organic and that it is entirely nervous, but the sickening effects of it are dispiriting to a degree.” He adds that in his youth it used to throw him into “ an involuntary passion of causeless tears.” Tremor is probably toxic as regards its causation. It may either take the form of an auto-toxis, owing origin to