Writings of ancient civilizations include evidence of their acquaintance with dropsy and heart failure: Egyptians were the first to use bloodletting to relieve fluid accumulation and shortage of breath, and provided what may have been the first documented observations on heart failure in the Ebers papurus (around 1500 BCE); Greeks described cases of dyspnea, fluid retention and fatigue compatible with heart failure; Romans used the flowering plant Drimia maritima (sea squill), which contains cardiac glycosides, for the treatment of dropsy; descriptions pertaining to heart failure are also known in the civilizations of ancient India and China. However, the manifestations of failing heart were understood in the context of these peoples medical theories – including ancient Egyptian religion, Hippocratic theory of humours, or ancient Indian and Chinese medicine, and the current concept of heart failure had not developed yet. Although shortage of breath had been connected to heart disease by Avicenna round 1000 CE, decisive for modern understanding of the nature of the condition were the description of pulmonary circulation by Ibn al-Nafis in the 13th century, and of systemic circulation by William Harvey in 1628.
Because it is so rare, and commonly misdiagnosed,  exactly how many people are affected by this disease is not known. The literature frequently cites that fewer than 200 cases have been reported, though a consensus is building that many more cases occur around the world than have been reported. History
The first known report of the condition came in 1838 in an article titled "A Boneless Arm" in what was then The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (now The New England Journal of Medicine). It is a brief report chronicling the case of Mr. Brown who had, in 1819 at age 18 years, broken his right upper arm in an accident. The person had two subsequent accidents, which fractured the arm twice more "before the curative process had been completed." At the time of the report in 1838, the person was reported as having remarkable use of the arm, in spite of the humerus bone having apparently disappeared – X-rays did not yet exist. Thirty-four years later,  a follow-up report was published in the same journal, following Mr. Browns death from pneumonia at the age of 70 years. The person had requested the arm "be dissected and preserved for the benefit of medical science" and this report contains a detailed pathological description of the arm and shoulder. Abnormalities of the remaining bones of the arm and shoulder are noted and the authors report that the arteries, veins, and nerves appeared normal. No mention was made of lymphatic vessels.