DEFINITION AND HISTORY.
Stokes-Adams disease or Adams-Stokes disease, sometimes called heart block, may be defined as bradycardia, continuous or recurrent, accompanied by paroxysmal attacks or syncope, with or without convulsions.It is eighty years since Adams of Dublin first described this condition. Twenty years later Stokes elaborated the description. The disease then seems to have sunk into a state of innocuous desuetude until 1893, when Huchard brought it to the attention of the profession, and in honor of the skilful clinicians who first observed it named it "Adams-Stokes Syndrome." Since then many cases have been described by various authors.
ETIOLOGY.
The disease occurs chiefly in males after the age of 30, the incidence increasing with the decades up to 60, when the frequency appears to lessen with the approach of senility. There has been a history of syphilis in some cases and in others a doubtful history. In the case