Abstract
THE realization that blood is a non-Newtonian and shear-thinning or thixotropic fluid is quite recent, and in great measure is due to the pioneering efforts of Wells and Merrill1,2, who first used a ‘Brookfield’ cone-plate viscometer and later a more complex coaxial-cylinder viscometer. Shortly afterwards, however, they observed3 some artefacts which influenced their viscosity readings and which they attributed to the formation of a rigid surface film, which was believed to transmit torque from the rotating to the suspended member of the viscometer. Believing that their observations negated the existence or the amount of shear-thinning in blood at low rates of shear (in the vicinity of 1 sec−1), they rejected some of their earlier data.
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References
Wells, R. E., and Merrill, E. W., Science, 133, 763 (1961).
Wells, R. E., and Merrill, E. W., J. Clin. Investig., 41, 1591 (1962).
Merrill, E. W., Cokelet, G. C., Britten, A., and Wells, R. E., Circulation Res., 13, 48 (1963).
Dintenfass, L., Kolloid Zeitschr., 180, 160 (1962); Circulation Res., 11, 233 (1962), and 14, 1 (1964); Biorheology, 1, 91 (1963); Nature, 199, 813 (1963); Angiology, 15, 333 (1964).
Dintenfass, L., Julian, D. G., and Miller, G. E., Lancet, i, 234 (1966); Amer. Heart J., 71, 587 (1966).
Wells, R. E., Fourth European Conference on Microcirculation, Cambridge, 1966, discussion on paper by Dintenfass, L.
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DINTENFASS, L. Guard-rings, Surface Films and Artefacts in the Viscometry of Human Blood. Nature 213, 179–180 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/213179a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/213179a0
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