Myocardial ischemia: Some historical notes

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).