Auricular Fibrillation

Abstract

In 1891 a young Jewish tailor, Case 4,* emigrated to this country from Russia with his wife and began the prologue to a unique chapter in medical history. This young man settled in Albany, N. Y., established himself as a tailor, fathered a family of five children, and later helped to bring his parents and 10 sisters and brothers from Russia. These few facts about this person seem typical enough of the 19th-century immigrant, but he is of particular importance from the physician's viewpoint because he is the keystone of a continuing 36-year study of a familial tendency toward auricular fibrillation. <h3>The Study</h3> A survey of all the medical literature on this subject produced descriptions of occurrences of auricular fibrillation among only two families,^1,2both dealing with males within one generation—the first three brothers and the second two brothers. This study now being reported of 113 males and females