Stroke historical perspective

Historical Perspective
Hippocrates (460 to 370 BC) was first to describe the phenomenon of sudden paralysis.

Apoplexy, from the Greek word meaning "struck down with violence,” first appeared in Hippocratic writings to describe this phenomenon.

The word stroke was used as a synonym for apoplectic seizure as early as 1599, and is a fairly literal translation of the Greek term.

In 1658, in his Apoplexia, Johann Jacob Wepfer (1620–1695) identified the cause of hemorrhagic stroke when he suggested that people who had died of apoplexy had bleeding in their brains.

Wepfer also identified the main arteries supplying the brain, the vertebral and carotid arteries, and identified the cause of ischemic stroke when he suggested that apoplexy might be caused by a blockage to those vessels.