450 STANHOPE BAYNE-JONES 



tion of the blood-vessels of normal hearts. Luschka found a 

 network of vessels in the broad part of the valve with small 

 vessels running to the line of closure, and a few vessels in the 

 lower portions of the chordae tendineae. In the 1863 edition 

 of his ' Anatomie' (3), Luschka states that blood-vessels are pres- 

 ent in the semilunar as well as the auriculo-ventricular valves 

 of the heart, and he illustrates this chapter with drawings from 

 injected specimens of normal valves. He describes both arteries 

 and veins in the valves and suggests that endocarditis may be 

 related to the presence of these vessels. He noted that it was 

 easiest to find vessels in the aortic leaflet of the mitral valve and 

 correlated this finding with the great frequency of endocarditis 

 lesions on this part of the valve. Luschka's drawings, however, 

 do not show the details of the relationship between the various 

 vessels and they are incorrect in that they indicate that the 

 capillaries end blindly in the valves. As will be shown later, 

 there are definite vascular anastomoses here and a characteristic 

 capillary bed. It is probable that Luschka's injection mass did 

 not penetrate sufficiently far. 



After Luschka's clear presentation of the subject, Joseph (4) 

 immediately opposed the idea that blood-vessels are present in the 

 valves. Since then the controversy has continued. The diffi- 

 culty in demonstrating the presence of these vessels seems to 

 have been the chief subject matter of the criticism of Luschka's 

 findings. It is obvious that Joseph did not inject the valves as 

 Luschka did. By some prescience, whose source is not in the 

 writings of Luschka, many authors decided that the valves 

 studied by Luschka were abnormal. 



Among the influential opponents of Luschka were Coen (5) 

 and Langer (6) . These authors found that the atrio-ventricular 

 valves were partially vascularized, while normal semilunar 

 valves never contained blood vessels. Langer associated the 

 presence of vessels in the atrio-ventricular valves with the 

 occurrence of fibres of smooth muscle. By making this correla- 

 tion, he announced a doctrine which has been invoked fre- 

 quently since then. Practically all subsequent studies have 

 shown that the blood-vessels are fairly abundant whenever 



