The death of Porthos, or the first description of vertebrobasilar insufficiency in fiction.

Medical Department of Frederikssund Hospital, Dybendal, 3600 Frederikssund, Denmark Vagn R0nnov-Jessen, MD, chiefphysician Vertebrobasilar insufficiency is a comparatively young clinical entity. Transient cerebral attacks were described in the last 40 years of the nineteenth century by Raynaud in 1862, Weiss in 1882, Bastian in 1886, and Osler in 1896.' Basilar thrombosis was first described by Hayem in 1868,2 but it was not until the clinical and pathological studies of Kubik and Adams were published in 1946' that doctors' interest was really aroused. The term cerebrovascular insufficiency was introduced by Denny-Brown in 195 1. Alexandre Dumas wrote his books about the three musketeers in the years 1844-7. In the last part of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou dix ans plus tard he described the death of the musketeer Porthos.'