This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by STIBITZ, G. R. Articles by RYTAND, D. A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by STIBITZ, G. R. Articles by RYTAND, D. A.

(Circulation. 1968;37:75.)
© 1968 American Heart Association, Inc.

---

On the Path of the Excitation Wave in Atrial Flutter

GEORGE R. STIBITZ PH.D.¹ DAVID A. RYTAND M.D.¹

¹ From the Department of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California.

Available data on the arrival times of excitation at various central and peripheral atrial sites during atrial flutter (in a number of dogs and in one patient) have been examined in relation to families of involutes of an arbitrary central obstacle. The degree of fit seems to be satisfactory and is superior to that made for the same data by central-centrifugal (mother-daughter) waves. The latter appear to be an erroneous corollary of the circus movement hypothesis. In contrast, the concept that successive wave fronts of an entrapped circuit wave in atrial flutter may be described by a family of involutes has an appropriate physiological basis in the construction of Huygens, as first suggested by Wiener and Rosenblueth.

Key Words: Involutes of obstacle • Circus movement hypothesis • Mother-daughter waves • Huygens' principle • Entrapped circuit wave • Canine atrial flutter • Central-centrifugal waves