title: Determination of the efficacy of the mechanism changing the relative rate of blood flow through cutaneous and deep lying veins with temperature.
abstract: An analytical model of the circulation in the upper extremities of man is used; it consists of one artery, a deep vein lying close to the artery and returning a fraction p of the arterial blood flow, and a cutaneous vein carrying the fraction (1 - p). Using the model, a method is given for finding, for any subject, the efficiency of the mechanism which changes the circulation pattern with temperature. A patient's extremity is immersed in water at 25 and 10 degrees c and the rate of blood flow and rate of heat loss from that flow are measured. Computation of p for these two temperatures is reduced to the solution of two linear equations. The method is applied to 11 subjects and gives good agreement with results obtained by a more elaborate method.
mesh_terms: D001132:Arm / Q000098:blood supply*; D001158:Arteries; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012867:Skin / Q000098:blood supply; D013696:Temperature; D014680:Veins