Abstract
This brief historical review alludes to some early work of clinical and experimental
myocardial ischemia, illustrated with facsimiles and passages quoted from the original
publications. Briefly, the first experimental ligation of a coronary artery in dog
was performed some 300 yr ago by Petri Chirac (1698). The systematic experimental
study on the influence of interrupting coronary circulation may be said to have begun
with Erichsen (1841), followed by the work of Panum (1862), who embolized the coronary
arteries of a young dog with a mixture of tallow, wax, oil and lamp black. Bezold
and Boyemann (1862) were the first to produce ventricular fibrillation by clamping
a rabbit's left coronary artery (“coronaria magna”). Samuelson (1881) demonstrated
the first “successful reperfusion” after a 4-min ligation of a coronary artery. Conheim
and von Schulthess-Rechenberg (1881) introduced the first experimental model in order
to produce “ischaemia-induced arrhythmias.”
Clinically, the term angina pectoris was first used by Rougnon (1801) and again by Heberden (1816). The first description
of atherosclerotic changes (“ossifications”) in the coronary arteries was reported
by Morgagni (1761). Jenner and Perry (1801) associated angina pectoris, the new disease
described by Rougnon, with the atherosclerotic changes described by Morgagni. Jenner
had already diagnosed the condition in his friend John Hunter (1794). The first coronary
occlusion correctly diagnosed at bedside and confirmed by autopsy was communicated
by Hammer in Vienna (1878).
