Cardiology: A Safer Shock for the Heart

One of the greatest boons for patients with certain types of heart disease was the discovery that a simple, direct-current electric shock can restore a twitching (“fibrillating”) heart to a normal pumping beat (TIME, Nov. 30, 1962). The most notable drawback is that this has usually required the preliminary use of general anesthesia, which is dangerous for heart patients. Now, in the New England Journal of Medicine, two George Washington University doctors report that a simpler and safer substitute for general anesthesia is readily available.

The drug that Dr. D. O. Nutter and Dr. R. A. Massumi recommend is diazepam, which under its trade name, Valium, is among the best-known, best-selling tranquilizers in the world today. Psychiatric patients take it by swallowing tablets, but the G.W. doctors recommend giving it by intravenous injection to patients with heartbeat abnormalities. As a result, they say, the patients are sedated gently but so deeply that they wake up with no memory of the jolting shock, and with heartbeats restored to normal.