Abstract
An apparatus and method were devised for measuring the concentration profile of erythrocytes settling in whole blood. Experiments were made with this technique on the blood of five human donors and the results of the concentration profiles are presented. At the early stages of sedimentation, a linear relationship was found to exist between the location of the interface and the time. Wall effects were found to be negligible in the settling tubes of 0.62 cm diameter, used in these studies. An unexpected finding was an initial sharp drop of the interface concentration within the first hour of sedimentation. The occurrence of this phenomenon emphasizes that the diffusion of erythrocytes plays a significant role in their sedimentation.
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