Physiological reviews - v. 2 Author:American Physiological Society (1887- ) 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: ARTERIOSCLEROSIS W. G. MAcCALLUM Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore The following review of the present status of our knowledge of arteriosclerosis w... more »as attempted unwillingly for it must be apparent to all that most of the extensive literature upon this subject consists of reviews. These are based upon the few papers which represent real study of the anatomical and functional changes, so that apart from the conflicting results of these few investigators one is impressed by the feeling that most of what is written has only the value of opinion and that we are extraordinarily ignorant with respect to this common affection. Diametrically opposite views are put forward as to the causes, the anatomical nature and effects of arteriosclerosis, many names of different significance are proposed for it and withal there has been no unanimity of opinion as to what should be included under this heading and what excluded. For the purposes of this review I shall use the term arteriosclerosis rather than atheroma, endarteritis deformans, atherosclerosis or any of the other terms already proposed, simply because it is the most familiar and best established and because it expresses accurately enough our very inaccurate knowledge of the condition. For the purposes of this review we must exclude from consideration syphilitic aortitis and arteritis, distinctly infectious processes in the arteries caused by other organisms such as the tubercle bacillus and the unknown cause of periarteritis nodosa, traumatic and toxic injuries leading to thrombosis and healing processes in the vessels, and perhaps with less justification, all the forms of obliterating endarteritis which cause the occlusion of the vessels of the extremities and of organs. Arteriosclerosis remaining for consideration ...« less