The sphygmometer : its value in practical medicine / by William Russell.

  • William Russell
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sphygmometer : its value in practical medicine / by William Russell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/176 (page 3)
    ^Introduction 3 was an exaggeration of normal tonus; and thickened arteries seemed to be particularly liable to become hypertonic. The use of another term—namely, elasticity—as applied to arteries, obscured the fact that, quite apart from the idea of stretching and recoil, the muscle of the wall was not only a living, but an active mechanism, determining the lumen of arteries, and acting under many different influences. It is important to understand that hypertonus occurs both as a prolonged and as an oft-recurring increase of the normal degree of contraction which vessels have in virtue of their muscular coat, and which is physiologically called tonus. Hypertonus carries with it an important influence on the circulation, apart from any alteration in blood-pressure—namely, a diminution in the blood- containing capacity of the vessels from a lessening in their lumen. The diminution in lumen necessarily occurs when an active contraction of the vessel wall is present. In diseased conditions it has very important results, and determines symptoms of grave significance. Its recognition clinically can usually be made by means of the finger. Evidence in support of these contentions was submitted in the paper referred to, and with greater fullness in my book on^ Arterial Sclerosis, Hypertonus, and Blood- Pressure, which has been out of print during the period of the Great War, but which, it is expected, will be reissued shortly. Here, however, it may be stated that such confirmation as was then available was obtained by means of sphygmographic tracings and arteriometer observations.