The Clinical Significance of Some Peculiarities of the Circulation in the Kidneys, Liver, Lungs and Heart

REFLECTION on the functional significance of the valves in the veins and in the heart led Colombo and Cesalpino to postulate a circulatory system in place of the long-accepted tidal flow of blood from the liver and heart. These anatomic peculiarities of the vascular system were also emphasized by Harvey, who first gave a quantitative description of the motion of the blood, based on the structure of the human heart and on experiments on living animals. In the past three decades more progress has been made in the quantitative study of the circulation of the viscera of man and animals . . .