Abstract
WRITTEN in response to the wish of the late Prof. Starling that the writer should analyse “in the briefest possible manner, the present state of our knowledge concerning the pressure pulses in the cardiovascular system”, it is impossible to indicate in a paragraph more than the purpose of this book, and to commend the thoroughness and care with which the work has been done. The elucidation of the dynamics of some relatively simple physical system frequently entails much preparation and ingenuity, in experiment. The first chapter of this work will indicate to the curious how vast and intricate a preparation has gone to the study of the dynamics of the animal cardiovascular system. There has developed a technique which not more than ten investigators have mastered. “We cannot deny that the circulation of an animal is affected adversely by such experimental influences as artificial respiration, anasthesia, hæmorrhage, nerve stimulation, exposure of heart and lungs, insertion and fixation of cannulæ. We can nevertheless maintain that it is quite possible to obtain circulatory conditions which appear to be normal to all criteria which we are able to apply.” Such an assertion arues a great confidence in an investigator, a confidence which, if justified, marks a great victory for ingenuity over the difficulties of animal experiment.
The Pressure Pulses in the Cardiovascular System.
By Prof. Carl J. Wiggers. (Monographs on Physiology.) Pp. xi + 200. (London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1928.) 14s. net.
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The Pressure Pulses in the Cardiovascular System . Nature 124, 873 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124873b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/124873b0