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Arterial hypertonus, sclerosis and blood-pressure
Arterial hypertonus sclerosis and bloodpressure Author:William Russell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III DISEASES OF ARTERIES INTRODUCTORY: ATHEROMA ENDARTERITIS DEFORMANS : OBLITERATIVE ENDARTERITIS -AORTITIS : CALCAREOUS INFILTRATION OF TU... more »NICA MEDIA : ARTERIO-SCLEROSIS. INTRODUCTORY. The difficulty which presents itself when diseases of the arterial wall have to be considered is to be attributed to the names used to designate the conditions met with, and the confusion which exists between clinical observations, pathological teaching, and the terms used. In illustration of this it is only necessary to recall the fact that in Britain and elsewhere the term atheroma was used to denote perfectly definite pathological changes in vessels, while clinically it was commonly applied to all thickenings of arteries examined for clinical purposes. The artery mainly examined was, of course, the radial artery, and the condition of it came to be regarded as, in great measure, an index of the state of other arteries throughout the body. It was, however, known that the condition of the radial artery was not a certain index of the condition of the cerebral or of the coronary arteries—there was no invariable relationship —yet the relationship was sufficiently constant to warrant considerable clinical importance being laid upon changes in it. It is quite within the limits of accuracy to say that all changes in the radial artery were spoken of, and thought of, as atheroma; and that atheroma was mentally pictured as a thickening with degeneration of the arterialwall. In fact, the conception was that of a degenerative thickening. It was further universally held that atheroma necessarily implied a rigidity of the arterial wall, and a loss in its elasticity. As a result of this line of thinking, based upon incomplete pathological observations, thickened arteries were regarded...« less