The occurrence of paroxysmal tachycardia in infancy and in childhood is extremely rare, and few authentic cases have been recorded in medical literature. The youngest patient in a reported case was an infant, aged 4 days, whose case was reported by Werley.1 The type of tachycardia was not identified because electrocardiograms were not taken, but polygraphic tracings showed the rate of the heart to be 307 a minute. Necropsy revealed a widely patent foramen ovale; distinctive microscopic changes were not evident.
Colgate and McCulloch2 reported two cases of paroxysmal tachycardia in infancy; one occurred in a child, aged 21 days, and the other in a child, aged 24 days. In the first case the rate of the heart was 250 during a paroxysm, but since electrocardiograms were not obtained, the type of tachycardia was not determined. In the second case, electrocardiograms revealed changes that the authors concluded were