The pulse / by W.H. Broadbent.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pulse / by W.H. Broadbent. 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.

    25/336 (page 13)
    Chap. I.] History. ^3 Tn^^nr/^^'-t, hSeetgo fa.the. back than G™ he overlaid it with trmal and ran scend^ntal refinements, and confused the ^esul^s^ ot simple and accurate observation by verbal and theo- retical considerations. Kp+fpv To-day the study of the pulse cannot be better begun, or a better description of its vana ions be more clearly given than by considering separate y-(l) tiie rate or frequency of the beats 3 (2) the character of the individual pulsations; (3) the intensity of the beats; (4) the size of the vessel and its hardness 01 softness as given by Rufus, and probably bj Arch - genes. No doubt physicians have continued to esti- mate .vith care and accuracy the_ diagnostic and prognostic significance of the indications furnished by the pulse, but it was a great loss to medical science when vague descriptions, such as quick or rapid and slow, full and bounding, firm, and the like, capable of various interpretations, took the place of the definite terms employed by the early writers named, it thus became impossible to_ transmit by writing the know- ledge gained by experience. _ A new era, however, set in when the circulation began to be studied as a physical problem. The early attempts to estimate the work done by the heart were, it is true, mere random guesses ; but when Hales in 1748 and PoiseuiUe in 1828 applied the first rude apparatus for measuring the fluid pressure m the arteries, and setting it down as equivalent to a column of so many inches of blood or water, or so many millimetres of mercury, a real step was taken, and the way was opened for the complete and more exact investigations of Volkmann, Yierordt, Ludwig, Fick, Chauveau, Marey, and others. The fluid pressure has been measured not only in