The Concept of Heart Failure From Avicenna to Albertini

Abstract

In this scholarly work, Dr Jarcho has sought to illustrate and discuss the concepts held by physcians of a remote era about the nature, causes, and treatment of what is today termed "congestive heart failure." By limiting his study to a period from about 1000 AD to roughly 1748 AD, he has undertaken a very difficult task. Although this period extends more than 100 years beyond the publication of William Harvey's epochal description of the nature of the circulation (<i>De Motu Cordis</i>, 1628), these physiological concepts had not diffused significantly into clinical thought during the period under discussion. Consequently none of the approximately 19 physicians, whose writings Dr Jarcho has analyzed, was really aware of the function of the heart, and most did not even mention the possibility of cardiac malfunction as a cause of symptoms. There really was no concept of failure of the heart during those times, and