Lymphatics of the Heart

Abstract

This is a comprehensive book on a subject that in medical literature is off the beaten track for most physicians. The book culminates many years of interest and experimental work on this subject by the author, who had noted a clinical association between congenital lymph ectasia and endocardial fibroelastosis and became interested in the thesis that obstruction of cardiac lymphatic drainage might have an etiologic role in this type of clinical cardiac pathological condition. The hypothesis remains unproved, but has stimulated a worthy, scholarly effort. The book is primarily a review of the published literature on the lymphatics of the heart, and the approach is primarily historical. There are extensive quotations and reproduced illustrations from publications of previous authors in the field. The author's own experimental work is also presented, but in appropriate balance with the field as a whole. There have not been major advances in this field in