2000 YEARS OF HISTORICAL RECORD OF THE WORDS ATHEROMA, ATHEROMATOSIS,ATHEROSCLEROSIS, ARTERIOSCLEROSIS

Renowned authors, when studying arterial diseases, use indifferently t he words atheroma, atheromatosis, atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis. The historical record of these words permits the justification of a s elective choice. The word atheroma was created by Celsius, two thousan d years ago; he have it the meaning of fatty tumor, which was kept til l the middle of the nineteenth century. The word atheromatosis appeare d on 1815, since J. Hodgson defined so the fatty arterial degeneration . Marchand, from Leipzig, proposed on 1904 the word atherosclerosis wh ich has always been with us. The term arteriosclerosis was well define d on 1833 by Lobstein, from Strasbourg. The authors propose to reserve the word atherosclerosis to the arterial disease described by the WHO , to keep the words atheroma and atheromatosis to anatomical lesions w ell-defined. Arteriosclerosis is a disease which invades an extensive arterial network, with a particular anatomical image.