Abstract
One of the remarkable properties of blood is its ability to flow with a viscosity only a few times greater than water, though approximately half its volume is composed of cells. If the cellular components were rigid spheres, blood would have the consistency of a solid (Taylor et al., 1965). By hardening cells with formalin or acetaldehyde, Kuroda et al. (1958) and Seaman (1966) found that the viscosity was increased by an order of magnitude. It has also been demonstrated (Chien et al., 1967) that the whole-blood viscosity is Newtonian in these circumstances. The viscosity of normal whole blood is non-Newtonian with a magnitude of about 5 cP (mPa. s) at 37°C and high shear rates. On this basis it has become accepted that the flexibility of red blood cells and the plasma viscosity are the main factors which determine the viscosity of blood at high shear rates, though quantitative evidence for this hypothesis is lacking in the range of viscosity between these two extremes.
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Sirs, J.A. (1981). Erythrocyte Flexibility and Whole-blood Viscosity. In: Lowe, G.D.O., Barbenel, J.C., Forbes, C.D. (eds) Clinical Aspects of Blood Viscosity and Cell Deformability. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3105-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3105-2_2
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