[Two thousand years of historical study on the words atheroma, atheromatosis, atherosclerosis, arteriosclerosis].

Renowned authors, when studying arterial diseases, use indifferently the words atheroma, atheromatosis, atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis. The historical record of these words permits the justification of a selective choice. The word atheroma was created by Celsius, two thousand years ago; he have it the meaning of fatty tumor, which was kept till the middle of the nineteenth century. The word atheromatosis appeared on 1815, since J. Hodgson defined so the fatty arterial degeneration. Marchand, from Leipzig, proposed on 1904 the word atherosclerosis which has always been with us. The term arteriosclerosis was well defined on 1833 by Lobstein, from Strasbourg. The authors propose to reserve the word atherosclerosis to the arterial disease described by the WHO, to keep the words atheroma and atheromatosis to anatomical lesions well-defined. Arteriosclerosis is a disease which invades an extensive arterial network, with a particular anatomical image.