Cardiac fibrillation is caused by an irregular wave propagation. Fibri
llation can be eliminated by a strong electric field (5 kV, 20 A, 2 ms
ec). The mechanism of this phenomenon (defibrillation) is not known. T
he principal difficulty, as shown in experiments and confirmed by clas
sical cable theory, is that the changes in transmembrane potential, e,
induced by electric field, decay exponentially with distance from the
electrodes. We study wave suppression by an electric field in generic
excitable media. In excitable media consisting of separate cells (sim
ilar to biological tissues), we have found a suppression of rotating w
aves and defibrillation induced by strong electric field, contrary to
what happens in continuous media. We show that the spatially periodic
component of e which arises in cellular media is responsible for defib
rillation. We have found that (i) it does not decay with distance; (ii
) it can excite quiescent cells and terminate excitation in excited ce
lls; (iii) the coupling between cardiac cells is a crucial parameter a
ffecting the amplitude of the spatially periodic component of e, and t
he efficiency of defibrillation. New experiments on cardiac muscle are
proposed.