Dr. Klaus Rentrop describes how three scientific errors withheld lifesaving treatments for heart attacks from patients for 30 years.
In 1880, Dr Karl Weigert, a German pathologist, described the cause of heart attacks: A blood clot (thrombus) forms in one of the heart's arteries at a spot already narrowed by atherosclerosis. Complete occlusion of the vessel abruptly stops blood flow to part of the heart muscle, which then dies. Dr James Herrick familiarized American physicians with this insight 30 years later. Further research revealed that clot formation is triggered by the breakage of the atherosclerotic narrowing, called "plaque rupture."
