Abstract
Measurements were taken of the viscoelastic properties of saliva and blood serum, by slightly modifying the capillary apparatus constructed earlier by two of the authors. The elastic property measured was the recoverable shear strain as a function of shear stress, which enables one to calculate the elastic shear modulus. The materials tested were collected from hospital patients suffering from a variety of diseases, such as diabetes, cystic fibrosis, malignant neoplastic disease and Guillian–Barré syndrome. Measured values of the viscoelastic properties of the patients are found to be quite different from those of healthy persons, suggesting that the method developed by the authors has a potential use for possible clinical application in testing saliva or serum of patients.
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