Die aktive Verengerung des Lumens der capillaren Blutgefäße

August Krogh's theory of muscle microvascular control and oxygen delivery: a paradigm shift based on new data

“…During the 1930s, as summarized by Sanders & colleagues (1940), the notion of capillary contractility was increasingly called into question and the field then became split between those advocating active capillary contraction (e.g. Kahn & Pollak, 1931; Sandison, 1931) and those considering capillaries as purely passive vessels with no active contraction (Rogers, 1932; Clark & Clark, 1935; Zweifach, 1937, 1939). Later, after noting a narrowing at the beginning of mesenteric capillaries, Zweifach coined the term ‘pre‐capillary sphincters’ and these structures, despite never being found functionally or anatomically in skeletal muscle, appeared globally in medical physiology textbooks in all tissues (Chambers & Zweifach, 1944; reviews: Sakai & Hosoyamada, 2013; Poole, 2019).…”

The Mechanism of Capillary Contraction

“…Swelling of the endothelial nucleus into the lumen of a constricted vessel has also been described by Kahn and Pollack [1931] in the nictitating membrane, Field [1935] in the mesentery of the rat, and Beecher [1936 a) in the ear of the rabbit. Kahn and Pollack [1931], Field [1935], and Beecher [1936] have combined the two divergent views and describe two types of capillary contraction: (a) Contraction of Rouget cells accompanied by longitudinal foldings and a decrease in the external diameter of the capillary, and (b) contraction caused by swelling of endothelial nuclei in which there is little change in the external diameter of the vessel.…”

“…Some investigators [Kahn and Pollack, 1931;Field, 1935;Beecher, 1936 a and b] described active capillary contractions, but others [Sandison, 1931;Clark and Clark, 1935;Zweifach, 1939] concluded that no active contraction occurred and that capillaries played only a passive part in the control of the circulation. The Clarks [1935] state that although they saw active contraction of capillary endothelium in amphibian larvae, they could find no true contraction of capillaries in the rabbit's ear.…”

“…Later observers agree that capillary contractions are accompanied by longitudinal folds in the wall of the capillary [Kahn and Pollack, 1931], and that there is an actual decrease in the external diameter of the capillary [Field, 1935]. Bensley and Vimtrup [1928] studied supravital preparations of the nictitating membrane, and described myofibrils in Rouget cells which stained specifically with Janus green B.…”

“…Kahn and Pollack [1931], Field [1935], and Beecher [1936] have combined the two divergent views and describe two types of capillary contraction: (a) Contraction of Rouget cells accompanied by longitudinal foldings and a decrease in the external diameter of the capillary, and (b) contraction caused by swelling of endothelial nuclei in which there is little change in the external diameter of the vessel. The observations to be described in this paper were made, in the first instance, incidentally, during the course of experiments with a modified Sandison-Clark chamber (Ebert, Florey, and Pullinger, 1939) in which the behaviour of tissue cells was being watched.…”