Pathology and valvular heart disease.

Over the past 25 to 30 years advances in therapeutics and pathology have considerably modified traditional concepts of valve disease, band much of the earlier literature of cardiac pathology has become mainly of historic interest. The introduction of antibiotics changed the pathology and course of infective endocarditis and is reducing the incidence of chronic rheumatic and syphilitic valve disease; new pathological observations have brought Xthe realization that not all chronic valve disease is rheumatic, congenital, or syphilitic, and increasing longevity is reflected in the increasing importance of degenerative heart disease.