XIII. Hydraulic investigations, subservient to an intended Croonian Lecture on the motion of the blood

Abstract

Having lately fixed on the discussion of the nature of in­flammation, for the subject of an academical exercise, I found it necessary to examine attentively the mechanical principles of the circulation of the blood, and to investigate minutely and comprehensively the motion of fluids in pipes, as affected by friction, the resistance occasioned by flexure, the laws of the propagation of an impulse through the fluid contained in an elastic tube, the magnitude of a pulsation in different parts of a conical vessel, and the effect of a contraction advancing progressively through the length of a given canal. The phy­siological application of the results of these inquiries I shall have the honour of laying before the Royal Society at a future time; but I have thought it advisable to communicate, in a separate paper, such conclusions, as may be interesting to some persons, who do not concern themselves with disquisitions of a physiological nature; and I imagine it may be as agreeable to the Society that they should be submitted at pre­sent to their consideration, as that they should be withheld until the time appointed for the delivery of the Croonian Lecture. It has been observed by the late Professor Robison, that the comparison of the Chevalier Dubuat's calculations with his experiments is in all respects extremely satisfactory; that it exhibits a beautiful specimen of the means of expressing the general result of an extensive series of observations in an analytical formula, and that it does honour to the penetra­tion, skill, and address of Mr. Dubuat, and of Mr. de St. Honore', who assisted him in the construction of his expres­sions: I am by no means disposed to dissent from this enco­mium; and I agree with Professor Robison, and with all other late authors on hydraulics, in applauding the unusually accurate coincidence between these theorems and the experi­ments from which they were deduced.