The historical evolution of the concept of apoptosis in rheumatic diseases

The concept of “apoptosis” can be found in chapter 35 of Hippocrates’ Mochlicon (V-IV century B.C.), a treatise concerning the reduction of dislocations, in which the gangrene resulting from the treatment of fractures by means of bandages is reported and described (1,2). The idea of apoptosis was consequently already implied by Hippocrates to indicate what today is considered the physiological destruction of cells and tissues. Areteus of Cappadocia in the I century A.D. and Galen of Pergamus in the II gave ulterior and better elaboration to the concept of “necrosis”, and the term was fully defined by Rudolph Virchow, the great German pathologist, in the XIX century (3)....