Cases of diseases of the heart accompanied with pathological observations

This is a historical account of Stokes-Adams disease, with emphasis on the important advances which have increased our knowledge of the disease in an attempt to discover how these advances came about and the influence they had on medical thinking. Important historical information has been included in many texts on aspects of heart disease, especially those of Hirschfelder 1 and of Lewis,2 and there have been a few papers devoted exclusively to the history of the disease, notably those of Krumbhaar3 and Wilhem His Jr.4 While this manuscript was being prepared a new account has appeared with a somewhat different approach than that used in the present paper.