Observations on venous pressures and their relationship to capillary pressures / by W.M. Bayliss and E.H. Starling.
- William Bayliss
- Date:
- 1894
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on venous pressures and their relationship to capillary pressures / by W.M. Bayliss and E.H. Starling. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![\^From the Journal of Physiology. Vol. XVI. Xos. 3 <(; 4, 1894,] OBSERVATIONS ON VENOUS PRESSURES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO CAPILLARY PRES- SURES. By W. M. BAYLISS, B.A., B.Sc. and ERNEST H. STARLING, M.D., M.R.C.P. (Plates VIII. IX. X. and 3 Figs, in Text.) {From the Physiological Laboratory, Guys Hospital.) The experimental results which we wish to bring forward are largely such as might be predicted by anyone with a knowledge of the elementary principles of the circulation. Our justification in bringing them forward however is that they have not been so predicted, and it was only after obtaining the results that we asked ourselves why they had not occurred to us before. In fact they seem to form part of a forgotten or disregarded chapter in the physiology of the circulation, although they are of great importance for the question of pressure in the capillaries of the abdominal organs and therefore for the physio- logical processes of secretion and transudation which take place in these organs. Thus even in Heidenhain’s experiments on the relationship of lymph formation to blood pressure, the arterial blood pressure is the only factor measured and is spoken of as if it were synonymous with, or varied directly as, the capillary pressure. Now this assumption, although true in certain particular cases, would only be true generally if the vascular system were similar to a series of tubes through which water is flowing from an inexhaustible reservoir. Here changes in the height of the head of pressure would cause corresponding changes in the pressure at any part of the system. The vascular system however is a closed system of tubes with definite capacity and containing a definite amount of fluid, and the prevssure in any given capillary area cannot be at once estimated from a tracing taken from the femoral or carotid arteries.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22458827_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
