3 ‘A Sensible Hissing’

^fn1 When Morgagni’s work was first published in English the section in italics was coyly left in the original Latin. Since modern readers are unlikely to be outraged by this detail I have taken the liberty of translating it.

^fn2 Hunter’s brother-in-law, the surgeon Sir Everard Home, noted that ‘what is rather curious, in many recent instances of this disease, the patients have been coachmen and postilions’. Sitting for long periods while travelling along bumpy roads perhaps made them particularly vulnerable to popliteal aneurysm.

^fn3 A single ligature might have sufficed, but as Home explains: ‘The reason for passing four ligatures was to compress such a length of artery as might make up for the want of tightness, as he chose to avoid great pressure on the vessel at any one part.’

^fn4 Aneurysms and dissections are now classified as separate lesions with different underlying causes.