A case of Takayasu's disease occurred over two hundred years ago

The author refers to a case described in 1761 by G.B. Morgagni, in which there were all the clinico-pathological features of aspecific aorto-arteritis, as it was pointed out in this century by some Japanese authors. Morgagni's case was a woman 40 years old, whose radial pulses were never perceived for many years before her death; the necroscopic examination showed severe aortic alterations, characterized by ectasias, aneurysms and stenosis, with subclavian obstruction at the origin. The radial arteries, on the contrary, were found unaffected. This case, as well as another reported by Savory in 1856, demonstrates that an obstructive disease of the aorta and its branches had been already noted and described long before in the European Countries in spite of the rarity of this sickness.