PERIPHERAL vascular sensibility has been a controversial subject since Leriche1 first published his provocative clinical observations on arterectomy. Based on the clinical response of patients afflicted with obliterating arterial disease to excision of the thrombosed arterial segment, Leriche concluded that peripheral arterial tissue has a sensory innervation, that the neurons concerned with peripheral vascular sensibility course through the extremities within adventitia, and that these afferents traverse the extraspinal portion of the sympathetic nervous system before entering the spinal cord. Leriche has maintained consistently * that an inflamed artery is equivalent to an inflamed sensory nerve.
In 1922, Odermatt4 had demonstrated pseudaffective pain reactions to distention of peripheral arteries and intra-arterial injection of irritating chemicals. Shortly thereafter, Friedrich,5 Abrashanow, and Schilf and Stahl7 confirmed independently Odermatt's observations and also contended that many of the sensory neurons stimulated by the irritating intra-arterial injection passed centrally along the injected artery