
By MIKE MAGEE
After Trump crashed the markets, citizens worldwide are “feeling the pressure.” But in the spirit of calming us down, let’s consider a story of human cooperation and success from our past.
It has been estimated that a medical student learns approximately 15,000 new words during the four years of training. One of those words is sphygmomanometer. the fancy term for a blood pressure monitor. The word is derived from the Greek σφυγμός sphygmos “pulse”, plus the scientific term manometer (from French manomètre).
While medical students are quick to memorize and learn to use the words and tools that are part of their trade, few fully appreciate the centuries-long efforts to advance incremental insights, discoveries, and engineering feats that go into these discoveries.
Most students are familiar with the name William Harvey. Without modern tools, he deduced from inference rather than direct observation that blood was pumped by a four chamber heart through a “double circulation system” directed first to the lungs and back via a “closed system” and then out again to the brain and bodily organs. In 1628, he published all of the above in an epic volume, De Motu Cordis.
Far fewer know much about Stephen Hales, who in 1733, at the age of 56, is credited with discovering the concept of “blood pressure.” A century later, the German physiologist, Johannes Müller, boldly proclaimed that Hales “discovery of the blood pressure was more important than the (Harvey) discovery of blood.”
Modern day cardiologists seem to agree.
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