An analysis of the vascular injuries and attempted resuscitation surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr was the most prominent civil rights leader in the United States in the 1960s. He was shot by an assassin in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After the shooting he was taken to a local hospital where he had an unsuccessful resuscitation for a right subclavian artery transection. Despite the fact that the circumstances around the assassination have been frequently reported and reviewed in the past 50 years, the specific vascular care of the traumatic injury has not been analyzed. This paper reviews the medical aspects of the King assassination and the management of his subclavian injury.

[The development of the treatment of vascular injuries until today]. / Az érsérülések ellátásának fejlodése napjainkig.

The healing of vascular injuries goes hand in hand with the healing of scars, which means we can search for various methods from centuries ago. The different ages, with or without wars, showed and show a huge variety of injuries, up until this day. The healers have always tried their best to come up with the best possible methods taking care of the injured body parts, and help the patients survive. This article is aiming to show the main changes in vascular healing, in an enjoyable and colourful way. While focusing on the past few decades of quality development and having a look at Hungarian literature, the reader shall learn that Hungarian vascular surgery and traumatology is on a very high level and is keeping up with the international stage, as using modern techniques. The treatment of vascular injuries has been around for thousands of years. The Ebers Papyrus gave a professional guidance in the treatment of wounds. Hippocrates recommended compressing dressing. Later on, Ambroise Paré performed ligatures. War injuries serve with numerous experiences. In the begining of the 20th century, autolog veins are used more and more often. The amputation rate of DeBakey is 49%, of Hughes is 7-22%, and of Rich is 12.7%. Thanks to surgical technique, antibiotics and the use of transfusion, the rate of amputation has been decreasing. The wars of Iraq and Afganistan - between 2003 and 2011 - left the injured with more serious explosive and gunshot wounds than ever before. The challanges of nowadays are the injuries caused by accidents and violent acts. Also, endovascular interventions are widespread. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(28): 1112-1119.

[Sudden death in Versailles: A review of a cardiovascular treatrise by Dionis (1710)]. / Les morts subites à Versailles : une relecture du traité de Dionis (1710).

In 1710, the surgeon Pierre Dionis publishes a Dissertation on sudden death. Echoing and expanding the work of his Roman colleague Jean Marie Lancisi, he describes and analyzes dozens of cases of sudden death observed by him. A large number of cases was followed by autopsies allowing clinicopathological confrontation. Are proposed causes of death (pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction, hemorrhagic stroke, arterial rupture, etc.), pathophysiological mechanisms based on the ancient theory of humors, and preventive actions to avoid these unexpected deaths. In this article, we oppose these old data to those of current literature.

[Development on Early Treatment Technique of Vascular Injury in Wartime].

In the background of the high incidence of vascular injury in wartime, this paper introduces the characteristics of vascular injury in war environment and the development of early treatment technique of vascular injury applied in wars since World War Ⅱ. Then, the advantages and limitations of various treatment techniques are also analyzed. Finally, The development of technology and research direction are summarized and prospected.

Fifty-year anniversary of the Vietnam Vascular Registry and a historic look at vascular registries.

The management of arterial injuries has evolved from simple cauterization of the time of Ambrose Paré to the more complex repairs of today. Through history there has been much learned from combat regarding the management of vascular injuries. Starting in World War I, vascular registries have been established to further study and refine the management of these injuries. One of the most pivotal registries was the Vietnam Vascular Registry established by Dr Norman Rich. The lessons learned from these registries have been carried on to the current conflicts with the establishment of the Global War on Terror Vascular Initiative. We compare 100 lower extremity vascular injuries from the Vietnam Vascular Registry to 100 injuries in the Global War on Terror Vascular Initiative database as we continue to improve the future with lessons from our past.

Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way-How Bold Young Surgeons Brought Vascular Surgery into Clinical Practice from the Korean War Battlefield.

The maturation of vascular surgery into widespread clinical practice was accelerated by events that took place in Korea during the conflict of 1950-1953. Early research and anecdotal clinical trials were just then resulting in publication of cases of the successful vascular repairs and replacements. Noncrushing vascular clamps were being developed and limited manufacture begun. The stage was set for a major advance in the treatment of arterial injury, just as war commenced in Korea, which provided a clinical laboratory. When the war on the Korean Peninsula erupted in June 1950, the policy of the Army Medical department was to ligate all arterial injuries unless a simple transverse or end-to-end anastomosis could be performed, and repair was "contrary to policy and orders." Despite pressure and threats of "courts martial for vascular repairs" from the senior military medicine leaders-clinical experiments in arterial repair were carried out at Mobile Army Surgical Hospital facilities at battlefield locations across Korea. The young surgeons, mostly draftees and reservists, resisted rigid doctrine and orders to desist, and in the face of threatened punishment, were committed to do the right thing, and ultimately went on to change military medicine and vascular surgery. The "on-the-job" training in vascular surgery that was carried out in Korea by military surgeons who demonstrated substantially higher limb salvage rates energized the field from the battlefield laboratory. Many wounded soldiers had limbs saved by the new techniques in vascular repair pioneered by surgeons in the Korean War, and countless thousands who entered civilian hospitals for emergency vascular surgery in subsequent years also ultimately benefited from their work.

Contributions of the surgeon Nikolai Korotkov (1874-1920) to the management of extremity vascular injury.

The Russian military surgeon Nikolai Korotkov is known worldwide, mainly among internists and cardiovascular specialists, as the discoverer of the auscultatory method of measuring arterial blood pressure in 1905. This article reveals him as one of the first military vascular surgeons to carefully investigate, analyze, and register cases of vascular injury during his voluntarily trips to the Russian Far East in 1900 to 1901 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905. Examining 44 patients with extremity arterial and arterial-venous pseudoaneurysms following war-related injury, he routinely performed a measure termed the "arterial pressure index" using "Korotkov sounds." This pioneering approach to assessing extremity perfusion was the precursor to the modern-day ankle-brachial and injured extremity indices, and it initiated the quantitative assessment of the compensatory ability of the vascular system to restore circulation following axial artery ligation. Because of high thrombosis rates following direct vessel repair during his day, he proposed use of pharmacologic substances such as digitalis and amyl nitrite to improve extremity perfusion. As evidence of his innovative nature, Korotkov even proposed the use of "oxygenated nutrient solutions" in the future to improve extremity circulation. More than 100 years after his work, as continuous wave Doppler ultrasound, contrast angiography, and computed tomography are ubiquitous as diagnostic tools, the practice of surgery would be well served to recall Korotkov's foundational work and the rule of thumb for any physician: examine the patient.

Contemporary wars and their contributions to vascular injury management.

INTRODUCTION: Man's inhumanity for man still knows no boundaries, as we continue as a species as a whole to engage in war. According to Kohn's Dictionary of Wars [1], of over 3,700 years of recorded history, there have been a total of 3,010 wars. One is hard pressed to actually find a period of time in which here has not been an active conflict in the globe. The world has experienced two world wars: WWI (1914-1918) and WWII (1939-1945). The total number of military casualties in WWI was over 37 million, while WWII so far, has been the deadliest military conflict in history with over 60 million people killed accounting for slightly over 2.5% of the world's population. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The purpose of this study is to review contemporary wars and their contributions to vascular injury management. It is precisely wartime contributions that have led to the more precise identification and management of these injuries resulting in countless lives and extremities saved. However, surgeons dealing with vascular injuries have faced a tough and arduous road. Their journey was initiated by surgical mavericks which undaunted, pressed on against all odds guided by William Stewart Halsted's classic statement in 1912: "One of the chief fascinations in surgery is the management of wounded vessels." CONCLUSION: Contemporary wars of the XX-XXI centuries gave birth, defined and advanced the field of vascular injury management.

The value of anecdote.

Anecdote is defined as "a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident" and are not often deemed scientifically valuable (www.merriam-webster.com). Anecdotes can be analyzed, however, and those observations can become the initiation of important and groundbreaking work. In this article, we describe aecdotes of several cases which by themselves had seemingly little value. The value was added later, when these concepts were extrapolated to important projects, which expanded into series of experiences, which were reproducible and able to be analyzed and judged as valuable devices and/or methods. The authors recognize that some of the images are old and not of great quality but the information provided is as complete as possible and reliable.

Vascular injury in the United kingdom.

Surgeons working within the United Kingdom's National Health Service have an established history of clinical innovation, research, and development in the field of vascular surgery but lack a unified trauma system to deliver optimal care for patients with vascular injury. The low incidence of vascular trauma, combined with lack of regional trauma systems, works against optimal delivery of care to the polytrauma patient. Providing care, robust data capture, and opportunities for training and education in vascular injury lag behind other elective domains of vascular practice. The challenge is to define ideal care pathways, referral networks, and standards of practice and to integrate the care of such patients. In 2010, a trauma system for London was introduced; it has provided vascular surgeons with a unique opportunity to study and advance the care of patients with vascular injury. This article discusses developing trauma network issues, particularly the organization and evolution of vascular trauma services in the United Kingdom.