Vertebrobasilar Disease

Louis R. Caplan; Aishwarya Aggarwal

doi:10.1017/9781009030854.022

Chapter Seventeen - Vertebrobasilar Disease

from Types of Stroke

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2022

Louis R. Caplan and

Aishwarya Aggarwal

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Louis R. Caplan: Affiliation:
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre
Aishwarya Aggarwal: Affiliation:
John F. Kennedy Medical Center

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Summary

The first important attention given to disease of the posterior circulation was likely by a Swiss pathologist and physician Johan Jacob Wepfer [1]. He followed the example of Vesalius and performed meticulous necropsy examinations. He described the results of his dissections in his magnum opus on apoplexy, published in 1658 [2]. He described the appearance and the course of the intracranial arteries and recognized blockage of the carotid and vertebral arteries caused by disease of the arterial walls as a cause of apoplexy, the obstruction preventing entry of sufficient blood into a portion of the brain. He described the anatomy of the intracranial vertebral arteries as follows:

As regards the vertebral arteries, they emerge from the nearest foramen, that great orifice through which the spinal marrow descends. They advance to the sides of the medulla oblongata.… When they reach that place where the sixth pair of nerves (IX, X, XI, XII) arises, the right and left branches are joined and form a single channel (basilar artery) and remain united along the whole marrow tract.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Stories of Stroke
Key Individuals and the Evolution of Ideas
, pp. 127 - 137

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030854.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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References

Notes and References

Sections and parts of this chapter have appeared in Caplan, LR. Posterior Circulation Disease: Clinical Findings, Diagnosis, and Management. Boston: Blackwell Scientific, 1996;Google Scholar Google Scholar Google Scholar

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