Affiliations: [a] Departamento de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain | [b] Department of Histopathology, King’s College School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK | [c] Experimentelle Thorax-, Herz- und Gefäßchirurgie, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author. Address: F. Torrent-Guasp, La Plana 63, 03700 Denia, Alicante, Spain. Tel.: ++34 6 578 1927; Fax: ++34 6 578 3082.
Abstract: The macroscopical structure of the ventricular myocardium has been an unsolved problem since the XVIth century, when Anatomy started as an authentic science. Since then the spatial organization of the myocardial fibres has represented, as Pettigrew says, “an arrangement so unusual and perplexing, that it has long been considered as forming a kind of Gordian knot in Anatomy. Of the complexity of the arrangement I need not speak further than to say that Vesalius, Albinus, Haller and De Blainville, all confessed their inability to unravel it”. What is shown in the present paper is the result of an anatomical work, developed over 43 years, by means of which it has been shown that the ventricular myocardial mass consists of a band, curled in a helical way, which extends from the pulmonary artery to the aorta. This is illustrated by a silicone rubber model cast from an actual unrolled myocardial band.
