Historical aspects of infective endocarditis.

Infective endocarditis was a fatal disease three generations ago. Temporal evolution of knowledge made possible important advances in diagnostic techniques, especially in echocardiography, the possibility of cardiac surgery during the active infectious process and new guidelines for antibiotic prophylaxis before interventional procedures. Nowadays, infective endocarditis is curable. In this review, we describe historical aspects of endocarditis, from Osler's observations in the 19th century to the change from a "clinically possible" to a "clinically defined" disease.