Von Winiwarter, in 1879, published his pathological findings in a case in which there was obliteration of the vessels of the leg due, as he considered, to a proliferative process in the intima, that is to say, an “endarteritis obliterans.” Other views on the pathology came to be propounded, notably that of van Manteuffel, who considered that consequent upon arteriosclerosis of the popliteal artery a white thrombus formed, which, spreading peripherally and becoming organized, produced the picture of an obliterative endarteritis. Twenty-five years after Winiwarter's paper Buerger published his observations based on 30 cases, with pathological studies on the vessels obtained from eleven amputated limbs. He disagreed with the views of both von Winiwarter and von Manteuffel. He found that besides an extensive obliteration of the larger arteries and veins there was a varying degree of peri-arteritis and arteriosclerotic thickening of the vessel wall, and concluded that the condition was a thrombotic process occurring in the arteries and veins, followed by organization and canalization, and not an obliterating endarteritis. He absolved the intima from any “considerable role in the genesis of the thrombotic process,” and attributed the thickening of the intima and the cellular infiltration and vascularization of the media and adventitia to the agency producing the coagulation of the blood and to the changes in the thrombus itself. He saw the final lesion as a vessel obliterated by dense connective tissue, canalized, together with some residual cellular infiltration and capillarization of the media and greater or less thickening of the adventitia and periarterial tissues, the thrombus having disappeared in the course of the development of this final result. He proposed the term “thrombo-angeitis obliterans” for the condition, and with the general adoption of the term Buerger's name came to be linked with it.