HISTORY OF THE ARTERIAL PULSE

 

 HISTORY OF ARTERIAL PULSE

 

Taking pulse allows health practitioners to find out what the  patient s heart rate is and to assess the strength, regularity, and character of the pulse. Irregularities might indicate a heart problem and must be investigated.

 

The History of arterial pulse shows a transition from random assumptions in ancient times which got improved in the Medieval times of medicine to  more accurate and detailed information in  Modern medicine. In general, there were improvements as the years passed by and thus future discoveries assure us of more  accurate and detailed scientific findings.

 In Ancient times physicians s diagnosis and prognosis were poorly carried out mainly based on beliefs rather than evidence and experiment, for instance Abu Ali s diagnosis of disease and determination of cure was done relating patient s pulse to districts and locations as well relating diagnosis to emotions such as love and concluding that cure would be complete by merely seeing a person.  This builds curiosity and wonder in how the illness was handled in the cases of children, married individuals and the elderly back in ancient times.

 

Greek ancient medicine came with more reasonable facts pertaining arterial pulse as the Hippocrates described characteristics of the arterial pulse in several conditions followed by Praxagoras s discovery that pulsation only occurs in the arteries, not in the veins. Ancient times Greek medicine was characterized by a lot of interesting occurrences for instance pulse at some point was likened to the leap of a goat followed by the its comparison to musical rhythm.  Greek physician Herophilus’ construction of a portable water clock made it possible to examine the pulse of his patients this was a first attempt towards use of scientific devices to ensure accuracy of the research findings.

 

In Medieval Medicine times there was a continuation in the use of arterial pulse for prognosis and diagnosis especially in the prognostication of epilepsy, interestingly the physicians were able to tell that the patient would have seizures just from feeling patient s pulse rate. Avicenna s findings after the ancient Greek physicians came with so much quality and greater detail to the pulse discovery journey. He categorized pulse based on different characteristics varying from duration, temperature, fullness and emptiness of the artery. I would say he jump started the discovery of today s pathology involving cardiac arrhythmia s involving arterial and ventricular fibrillation, also in medieval era of medicine there were thorough categorization of pulse than in the prior years, with its comparison to music outlining how pulse is linked to illness with more severe illness having more severely abnormal pulses.  In the days of the Hippocrates there was no exposure to human bodies because if so, there would not have had such beliefs as that the lower chambers of the heart were more comprised of air this clearly reveals that no one had ever seen the composition of atrium and ventricles in the heart.

 

Modern medicine was much more clearly characterized by a lot of experimentation however which made it very difficult to follow the research information within the books for instance determination of systole and diastole became difficult as movement in living organisms is very rapid likened to speed of lightning.

William Harvey the father of physiology came with a much clearer version of the cardiovascular system which  easier to understand such that all scientist got satisfied and no one ever questioned his findings I would assume that’s why there followed a period of no more discoveries after him for quite a while.

  William Harvey unraveled a lot of mysteries without any doubt we all agree that Harvey was an intelligent and well-equipped physician of his  time who would took his time and worked hard to make informed diagnosis and prognosis. In all   information put forward by his forefathers, Galen and Vesalis William would question each of their observations and proceed to experiment on them, such that he ended up discovering that the source of pulse was actually the right atrium rather than the arterial walls.

 Modern medicine experimentation on humans and on the animals  led forward to much more finer detail research. The era was characterized by more machinery invention and more usage of technology this improved accuracy of the pulse readings as time went on and as more inventions were made. Devices such as the pulsilogy by Santorio Sanctorius and Floyer ’s modern pulse Count greatly improved cardiovascular researches.

Greater detail pertaining heart pulse was enabled with the invention of sphygmometer by Jules Herisson followed by Invention of the sphigmogram by Marey  which came with the first formal study on arterial pulse wave in which pulse could be much clearly differentiated in the elderly as well in the young children.

More and more inventions came in modern medicine which enhanced accuracy of the research making it easier for instance use of the Doppler echocardiography with a high-resolution  to estimate arterial compliance and augmentation index based on carotid artery diameter. Augmentation index (AI) as a measure of pulse pressure was first defined by Kelly and his colleagues. These advances in technology during modern medicine clearly assures us that in the coming years accuracy of research would be hundred percent accurate and easy to carry out unlike  back in the days when research was based on beliefs as in Abu Ali s times.

by ANOTIDA N DZIVA