SYMPATHECTOMY IN THE TREATMENT OF PERIPHERAL VASCULAR SCLEROSIS

Abstract

The causes of and effective measures against arteriosclerosis are highly debatable and mostly not understood. For a general review of the vast amount of experimental and clinical research on this subject we refer to the exhaustive critical review of Hueper.¹ Unquestionably, as this author points out, a fatalistic attitude prevails toward its prevention and treatment. In a recent monograph on arteriosclerosis Moschcovitz² came to the conclusion that "unless the individual is cut down by intercurrent disease, death is invariably the result of arteriosclerosis. It is the inevitable destiny of all creatures who possess a cardiovascular system with intravascular pressure.... Arteriosclerosis being an inevitable consequence of aging and therefore an irreversible process, it is hardly likely that any method of therapy will ever be discovered which will restore the diseased vessels to their normal texture, unless we can cure mortality. Nor can arteriosclerosis be prevented, no more than gray