Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille and his work

M.W.Rampling

Abstract: Once the concept of the circulation of the blood put forward by William Harvey (1578-1657) had been universally accepted, it was to be expected that physiologists would begin to ponder the factors that controlled that circulation. This led, for example, to people like Stephen Hales (1677-1761) measuring the pressures in the major blood vessels. However the problems of branching and size in the microcirculation and the measurement of pressures there made direct analysis of the factors affecting blood flow in that region beyond practicality. It was this that led Jean Poiseuille (1797-1869) to perform his historic experiments on the quantitative relation between the factors that control the flow of liquids in small tubes and that led to his promulgation of the equation that bears his name.

Series on Biomechanics, Vol.32, No.3 (2018), 6-11

Keywords: flow in small tubes.; Galen; Hagen; Hales; Harvey; microcirculatory blood flow; Poiseuille

Date published: 2018-12-16