Paradoxical Embolism

Thompson and Evans (1930), without giving a reference, stated that the term was suggested by von Recklinghausen, and this has been accepted by other writers.Zahn (1881) described his first ,case as one of " consecutive embolism," and Rostan (1884), one of Zahn's assistants, proposed the term " l'embolie croisee " in his doctorate thesis.Zahn (1885) rejected this and suggested " paradox embolie" in a paper which corrects some of the errors of Rostan's review, and in the same year von Recklinghausen (1885) put forward his theory of retrograde venous and lymphatic transport of malignant emboli; in a subsequent paper Zahn (1889) upholds his introduction of " paradoxical embolism" and discusses von Recklinghausen's paper.Welch (1899) used " aberrant embolism" for Zahn's paradoxical embolism and von Recklinghausen's retrograde embolism.Ohm (1907) -correctly attributed the term " paradoxical embolism " to Zahn.