Avicenna and Tremor of the Heart.

Physicians have been mesmerized by a beating heart and its relationship to the peripheral pulse since the ancient times. Although William Harvey in 1628 was credited as the first to describe "fibrillation of the auricles," chaotic irregularity of the pulse was acknowledged by some as early as in the antiquity. In fact, a close examination of history may reveal a description of cardiac arrhythmias long before the era of modern medicine.