Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: ECG

  • General Robert E. Lee’s myocardial infarction: Did illness impact the Battle of Gettysburg?

    Lloyd KleinSan Francisco, California, United States Ascribing the loss of the Battle of Gettysburg to an illness of General Robert E. Lee became common among historians thirty years ago. The legend of his apparently poor judgment in ordering Pickett’s Charge, when appraised in view of his other outstanding military results, has baffled historians, thus appearing…

  • An unseen border

    T.Y. EulianoGainesville, Florida, United States “Please let me have the chest pain in 3,” I said. “I can’t take any more whiny kids today.” Clare raised an eyebrow. “You can have the next trauma.” “Two traumas,” she said. “I can’t stand any more whiny parents.” “Deal.” She wrote my initials by Room 3. “Remind me…

  • The electrocardiographic diagnosis of myocardial ischemia and infarction: 1917–1942

    Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Although myocardial infarction and angina pectoris had been recognized as serious heart conditions associated with sudden death since the 19th century (based primarily on patient symptoms of chest pain and pathologic correlations of involvement primarily of the left ventricle), James B. Herrick’s classic 1912 paper on the association of…

  • Willem Einthoven and the string galvanometer

    Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States “I do not imagine that electrocardiography is likely to find very extensive use in the hospital . . . It can at most be of rare and occasional use to afford a record of some anomaly of cardiac action.”—Augustus D. Waller, 1911 Perhaps the earliest technical device that was…