"CLEAR!" shouts the doctor as he presses the paddles against the patient's chest. You know the scene from countless episodes of
The heartbeat is one of the most dependable rhythms in the world. For 40 years, 70 years, even 100 years, the heart thumps away tirelessly. It clenches like a fist about 60 times every living minute. But things do go wrong. All too often the seed of trouble is a blood clot or a fatty plaque in a coronary artery, which supplies the heart itself with blood. The result is a heart attack.
Starved of oxygen, portions of the heart stop working or even die, and its organised pattern of contraction begins to break apart. The heart loses its ...
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