The elastic properties of the arterial wall / by Charles S. Roy.

  • Roy Charles S. (Charles Smart)
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elastic properties of the arterial wall / by Charles S. Roy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    By CHARLES S. ROY, M.D., George Henry Lewes Student. PL V., VI., VII. (From Experiments made in part in the Strassiurg Physiological Institute.) Having found it desirable, in the course of some investigations on the form of the pulse-wave, to elucidate one or two points connected with the elasticity of the arteries, I was led to undertake a number of experiments on the subject. These observations have become more extended than was at first contemplated, so much so that I consider it advisable to describe in a separate communication the results at which I have arrived. At first I sought only to determine, by direct experiment, what is the relation which exists between the intra-arterial pressure and the cubic capacity of any given portion of artery. In the course of my work on this subject, however, a number of facts came under my notice which seemed to deserve further investigation, and I was thus led to widen the limits of my experiments. I. Elasticity of Animal Tissues in general. Amongst those physical properties of the walls of the arteries which came to light in the course of this research, some, as might have been expected, were found to characterize other animal tissues as well, and to one or two of these I would call attention before treating of those attri- butes of the elasticity of the arterial wall which are peculiar to it, and which, apparently, are intimately bound up with its function in the animal economy. It is now pretty generally accepted that, in one important particular at least, the elastic properties of moist inorganic substances are markedly different from those of metals, glass, dry wood, &c. Iu the case of these latter the law of Hooke, ut tensio sic vis, is still held to be practically correct; within certain limits the elongations produced by weights are proportionate to the weights employed. With animal tissues (excepting bone) this law does not hold good. The increments in length, produced by the addition of successively increasing weights, diminish gradually in proportion to the weights PH. [II. 9 R