In 1658, in his
Apoplexia,
Johann Jacob Wepfer (1620–1695) identified the cause of
hemorrhagic stroke when he suggested that people who had
died of apoplexy had bleeding in their brains.Wepfer also identified the main
arteries supplying the brain, the
vertebral and
carotid arteries, and identified the cause of a type of
ischemic stroke known as a
cerebral infarction when he suggested that
apoplexy might be caused by a blockage to those vessels.
Rudolf Virchow first described the mechanism of
thromboembolism as a major factor.
