Poiseuille's work, in its turn, was left behind as physiology went
forward: especially, the discovery of the vaso-motor nerves compelled
physiologists to reconsider the whole subject of the blood-pressure.
If Poiseuille's thesis (1828) be compared with Marey's book (1863),
_Physiologie Médicale de la Circulation du Sang_, it will be evident
at once how much wider and deeper the problem had become. Poiseuille's
thesis is chiefly concerned with mathematics and hydrostatics; it
suggests no method of immediate permanent registration of the pulse,
and is of no great value to practical medicine: Marey's book, by its
very title, shows what a long advance had been made between 1828 and
1863--_Physiologie Médicale de la Circulation du Sang, basée sur
l'étude graphique des mouvements du coeur et du pouls artériel, avec
application aux maladies de l'appareil circulatoire_. Though the
contrast is great between Hales' may-pole and Poiseuille's manometer,
there is even a greater contrast between Poiseuille's mathematical
calculations and Marey's practical use of the sphygmograph for the
study of the blood-pressure in health and disease. Marey had the
happiness of seeing medicine, physiology, and physics, all three of
them working to one end:--
"La circulation du sang est un des sujets pour lesquels la
médecine a le plus besoin de s'éclairer de la physiologie, et où
celle-ci à son tour tire le plus de lumière des sciences
physiques. Ces dernières années sont marquées par deux grands
progrès qui ouvrent aux recherches à venir des horizons
nouveaux: en Allemagne, l'introduction des procédés graphiques
dans l'étude du mouvement du sang; en France, la démonstration
de l'influence du système nerveux sur la circulation
périphérique. Cette dernière découverte, que nous devons à M.
Cl. Bernard, et qui depuis dix ans a donné tant d'impulsion à la
science, montre mieux que toute autre combien la physiologie est
indispensable à la médecine, tandis que les travaux allemands
ont bien fait ressortir l'importance des connaissances physiques
dans les études médicales."
Marey's sphygmograph was not the first instrument of its kind. There
had been, before it, Hérisson's sphygmometer, Ludwig's kymographion,
and the sphygmographs of Volckmann, King, and Vierordt. But, if one
compares a Vierordt tracing with a Marey tracing, it will be plain
that Marey's results were far advanced beyond the useless
"oscillations isochrones" recorded by Vierordt's instrument.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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