THE CARDIOVASCULAR STATE IN THYROTOXICOSIS

Abstract

Our purpose in this paper is to review the historical concept of the cardiovascular state in thyrotoxicosis, compare it with current points of view and present the status of the heart in 180 cases of thyrotoxicosis in modern terms. Caleb Hillier Parry¹in 1825 reported a case of exophthalmic goiter and rheumatic infection. The patient eventually died of congestive heart failure without record of autopsy. Subsequently, he reported five other cases describing thyrotoxicosis with organic heart disease in at least two of them. Graves²in 1835 again wrote of this disease, reporting three cases. The nervous symptoms, tachycardia, exophthalmos and palpitation were well described. In these case reports there was no evidence favoring organic or structural cardiac disease. Basedow³next wrote of the goiter syndrome in 1840. His first patient was a woman with exophthalmic goiter complicated by acute articular rheumatism, malaria and two pregnancies. She was