Observations on the Blood Gases in Auricular Fibrillation and After the Restoration of the Normal Mechanism

The object of this investigation was to determine what changes take place in the gases of the arterial and venous blood when the cardiac mechanism reverts from auricular fibrillation to the normal mechanism. There has been no report of similar studies in the literature, and, indeed, such studies were hardly possible, except in the uncommon condition of paroxysmal fibrillation, until quinidin sulphate was found to bring about the restoration of the normal mechanism in auricular fibrillation. In the studies which Harrop1made of the blood gases there are reported two cases of auricular fibrillation with determinations of the gases of the arterial and venous blood during decompensation and after the patients became compensated. Peters and Barr2give the carbon dioxid absorption curves and blood gases in two cases of auricular fibrillation in their studies on cardiac dyspnea. Lundsgaard3has included several cases of auricular fibrillation in his report on the