Though doctors now know the causes and implications of a stroke, the condition hasn’t always been well understood. Hippocrates, the “father of medicine,” first recognized stroke more than 2,400 years ago. He called the condition apoplexy, which is a Greek term that stands for “struck down by violence.” While the name described the sudden changes that can occur with a stroke, it didn’t necessarily convey what’s actually happening in your brain.

Centuries later in the 1600s, a doctor named Jacob Wepfer discovered that something disrupted the blood supply in the brains of people who died from apoplexy. In some of these cases, there was massive bleeding into the brain. In others, the arteries were blocked.
In the decades that followed, medical science continued to make advances concerning the causes, symptoms, and treatment of apoplexy. One result of these advancements was the division of apoplexy into categories based on the cause of the condition. After this, apoplexy became known by such terms as stroke and cerebrovascular accident (CVA).

Source: Helthline.com