Toward reducing embolic complications from endocarditis.

Our understanding of infectious endocarditis (IE) has grown in conjunction with some of the major advances in the history of medicine (1). One of the earliest reports of the disease comes from Lazere Riviere, who in 1646 reported on a patient who suffered from progressive shortness of breath and a palpable murmur over the heart. At autopsy, Riviere found “small round outgrowths, the largest of which blocked the aortic valve.” In 1806, Jean Nicolas Corvisart coined the term “vegetations” and suggested—as they were similar to the venereal “cauliflower”—that they may be caused by syphilis (2). Corvisart’s pupil Theophile Laënnec devised the stethoscope in 1816. This enabled Corvisart to document the various murmurs that occur in IE, yet the cause and systemic complications of IE remained a mystery.