Postoperative Thrombophilia

POSTOPERATIVE thromboembolism is a modern disease. The earliest mention of phlebitis is commonly accepted as being that of Aretaeus,1 who described in the first century B. C., the autopsy on a patient with inflammation "about the vena cava." The account, however, is not sufficiently complete for one to know whether the condition was in fact thrombophlebitis in the modern sense of the term or some retroperitoneal infection such as a psoasmuscle abscess. It seems apparent, however, that for the eighteen hundred years that intervened between Aretaeus and Virchow2 phlebitis was considered to be a septic process and was mentioned most . . .