[Max Reger and his early death: could it have been avoided? : Would he have lived longer with adequate intensive care?].

Background: Max Reger was an organist, university teacher and composer whose life, illnesses, death and dying are not or hardly known to many.

Objectives: Which illnesses determined Reger's life and did his lifestyle and illnesses influence his compositional work? Could his early death have been avoided? From today's point of view, could modern intensive care medicine have helped him?

Material And Methods: A detailed analysis of Reger's diseases was performed using scientific databases (medline, pubmed). All published articles were evaluated and examined in detail.

[Gustav Mahler: tragic life, mysterious illness, early death : Could intensive care medicine have saved him today?].

Background: Gustav Mahler was a composer of the late Romantic period, one of the most famous conductors of his time and, as opera director, one of the most important reformers of musical theatre. Mahler's life, illnesses, death and dying are little or not at all known to many.

Objectives: Which illnesses determined Mahler's life? Could his early death have been avoided? From today's point of view, could modern intensive care medicine have helped him?

Material And Methods: A detailed analysis of Mahler's diseases was performed using scientific databases (medline, pubmed).

[Short history of the DC-Catheter-Ablation].

Direct current (DC) catheter ablation in 5 patients aiming to interrupt rapid atrioventricular (AV) conduction with atrial fibrillation and subsequent pacemaker implantation was first published by M. M. Scheinman et al.

[History of surgical treatment of cardiac arrhythmias in Germany : Surgical treatment of ventricular tachycardia and supraventricular tachycardia, especially pre-excitation syndromes (WPW)].

The history of surgical treatment of ventricular tachycardias (VT) is short, lasting from 1978 until 1993. "Indirect procedures" with infarct scar resection were performed without electrophysiologic studies, whereas "direct procedures" consisted of either complete endocardial incisions ("encircling endocardial ventriculotomy") or large endocardial resections ("endocardial peel-off" technique) after precise epicardial and endocardial mapping procedures. In Germany, the first to report on intra-operative electrophysiologic mapping for VT treatment were Ostermeyer, Breithardt and Seipel in 1979.

[Effects of classical or heavy metal music in humans and animals: implications for intensive care medicine].

Background: The importance of music in intensive care medicine is still controversial and the mechanisms of music are unclear. It is important whether different music styles (classical music [CM], Heavy Metal [HM] show measurable effects on blood pressure (BP) or heart rate (HR) in humans or not. It is also unclear whether behavioral patterns are influenced by music (CM, HM) in animals.