This invention relates to apparatus for recording electrocardiograms, of a kind enabling an electrocardiogram to be registered and recorded without specialised apparatus or particular know-how. Such apparatus enables a patient to record one or more electrocardiograms at the moment when the symptoms of a cardiac ailment appear. This offers a very simple manner in which an electrocardiogram significant to the ailment afflicting the patient to be obtained whatever the circumstances and location, without outside aids; the electrocardiograms thus registered are recorded by the apparatus and the recordings can be read and analysed subsequently by the practising doctor.