Readers familiar with Dr. Chung's many instructive, scholarly, well-illustrated, and eminently readable articles will be grateful to him for combining all these qualities in a book. This clinically oriented treatise on arrhythmias transcends its title (Principles) by including treatment, additional practical considerations in diagnosis such as arrhythmias during myocardial infarction and digitalis excess, pseudoarrhythmias, and quasiarrhythmias.
No aspect of rhythm disturbances is ignored, including mention of tenable alternate explanations where the mechanism of an arrhythmia is undecided, and the author is appropriately skeptical of explanations based on mere intuition. While, for example, Dr. Chung chooses to retain the familiar term "A-V nodal" (instead of "junctional") rhythms, this is by choice and their junctional-tissue origin is repeatedly cited.
Clarity and completeness are Dr. Chung's hallmarks, making it hard to choose among 19 masterly chapters. "Atrial Arrhythmias" is both succinct and detailed. "A-V Dissociation," "Electrical Alternans," and "Aberrant Conduction" are self-contained classics.