Aneurysms of the aorta : with especial reference to their position, direction and effects : being an exercise for an act for the degree of M.B. in the University of Cambridge / by Oswald Browne.

  • Browne, Oswald Auchinleck, 1855-1908.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Aneurysms of the aorta : with especial reference to their position, direction and effects : being an exercise for an act for the degree of M.B. in the University of Cambridge / by Oswald Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Fernelius speaking of external aneurysms had written: An aneurysm likewise happens sometimes in the internal arteries, especially under the breast, about the spleen and mesentery, where a vehement pulsation is often observed (^) ; but it was not until the year 1557, that any certain knowledge of their existence was obtained, when Vesalius for example's sake, having observed a certain pulsating tumour about the vertebrae in the back, in consequence of those things which he had observed before in external aneurysms, said that there was an aneurysm from a dilatation of the aorta, and was able to point out after death in the body of Leonardus Velserus, the abdominal aorta so dilated as to be almost as big as an ostrich's egg ('). Joannes Baptista Silvaticus (3), writing a particular treatise on aneurysm in 1595, makes no mention of the disease; and so slowly was knowledge of the subject advanced, that Joannes Riolanus, writing in 1658, makes the positive asser- tion that an aneurysm happens but seldom in the trunk of the aorta, by reason of the thickness of its coats (*); and JoACHiMUS Georqius Elsenerus, describing in 1670 an aneurysm of the aorta found by Gulielmus Riva, prefixed as a title to his remarks the words De paradoxico aneurysmate aortico (^). From this time, dissection of the dead body seems to have become more frequent. Dilatations of the aorta were no longer esteemed rare, and many cases were recorded. Yet still there followed but little progress in knowledge concerning the disease. Books of wider or more limited range were written upon the subject, but they could be summed up by Freind, writing upon the knowledge in his day of the whole subject of aneuiysm, in the words that he had been able to find only a successive series of hypotheses and conjectures everywhere involved in obscurity and confusion (), the writers neque argumentum de quo (1) Pathologia, 1. 5, c. 12. C) Theophilus Bonetus. Sepulchretum, 1700. (') De Aneurysmate Tractatio, 1595. (*) Encheiridium Anatomicum et Pathologicum, 1658. () Acta Nat. Curios. () Freind's History of Physic, 1750.