Ancestors’ Corner

Giovan Battista Agus

Correspondence: Giovan Battista Agus, e-mail: giovanni.agus@unimi.it

The paper Sclerotherapy of varicose veins-utilization of an intravenous air block. Am J Surg 1944;LXVI(3):362-6 by Egmont James Orbach, is probably the ancestor of the foam sclerotherapy. More visibility on Orbach’s technique derived from the chapter in the Samuels book Diagnosis and treatment of vascular disorders (Angiology) by The Williams and Wilkins Company, Baltimora, USA, translated in various languages included Italian in 1958 (Figure 1). We will remember how Saul S. Samuels was one of the founders of the first International Society of Angiology in 1951, after International Cardiovascular Society, for the united new complex specialty, medical and surgical together.
The drawing of the technique is really interesting for the past and also the present of sclerotherapy (Figure 2).
Finally, to explore this development of one of basic treatments in phlebology, we mention Wollmann J-C GR. The History of Sclerosing Foams. Dermatol Surg 2004;30:694-703.


Figure 1.


Figure 2


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