Some surface phenomena in clinical hemorheology

Out of the various problems in relation to clinical hemorheology, three items have been chosen to give a brief review together with the author’s own work and idea. The first item is the Copley–Scott Blair phenomenon, i.e. the remarkable decrease of apparent viscosity of blood in a fibrin-coated capillary tube as compared with that in a glass tube. A new explanation of this phenomenon is given based on an electric double layer formed at the interface between the wall and blood. The second item is the wall surface effect on clotting of blood. Kaibara and Fukada observed a remarkable difference between the clotting curves of blood in a glass test tube and that in a siliconized polyethylene tube. They attributed this effect to the difference of disruption of platelets between the glass surface and the siliconized surface. Our idea is that the collision frequency of a platelet with the wall surface will be explained by the total potential energy curve due to the presence of electric double layers. The third item refers to the electrical aspect of intravascular thrombus formation. The author’s idea is that the sticking of platelets to the endothelium and the aggregation of platelets may be explained by the intermembrane potential curve. The role of turbulence in thrombus formation may also be explained along this line of thought.