History of coronary heart disease.

Coronary heart disease, in the mid-twentieth century has become the most frequently occurring lethal disease. Coronary vessels, that is, coronary arteries tend to develop atherosclerotic plaques already at an early stage. The onset and course of this development has often been a mute one, without pain, rendering thereby the recognition of coronary artery disease difficult--far into the twentieth century. The many experiments and investigations performed during the "Renaissance" brought no results. An exact description and depiction of damaged coronary vessels as primary cause of occluded coronary arteries became possible towards the beginning of the twentieth century only.