Termination of ventricular fibrillation in man by externally applied electric countershock.

VENTRICULAR fibrillation is usually a rapidly fatal arrhythmia that may occur in cardiac patients, in any patient under anesthesia and in drowning and electrocution. In cardiac patients it is a frequent cause of sudden death in the course of coronary-artery disease, a well recognized mechanism of Stokes–Adams attacks, an uncommon toxic reaction to digitalis, quinidine and procaine amide, an occasional terminating event in ventricular tachycardia and a rare, but dreaded, complication of cardiac catheterization. In the operating room ventricular standstill is the usual initial mechanism of cardiac arrest, but ventricular fibrillation occasionally occurs,1 particularly during hypothermia or during anesthesia with . . .