Cerebral embolism following minor wounds of the carotid artery; report of an autopsy

IT HAS long been known that serious consequences may follow trauma or ligation of the carotid artery. About 1798 Abernathy 1 ligated the common carotid artery in a patient who had been gored in the neck by an ox, in order to arrest bleeding from a lacerated left internal carotid artery; the right side was paralyzed, and the patient died thirty hours after ligation. The common carotid artery was ligated in England by Fleming and in America by Cogswell in 1803; in the first instance the patient survived, while the latter case ended fatally twelve days after operation. 2 For the treatment of aneurysm, ligation of the common carotid artery was first employed by Cooper 3 in 1805; hemiparesis developed on the eighth day, to be followed thirteen days later by death. However, in all fairness, it should be added that three years later this surgeon repeated the same procedure