Watson's water hammer pulse is the medical sign which describes a pulse that is bounding and forceful, or, in other words, rapidly increasing and subsequently collapsing, as if it were the hitting of a water hammer that was causing the pulse.
This is associated with increased stroke volume of the left ventricle and decrease in the peripheral resistance leading to the widened pulse pressure of aortic regurgitation.
Read more about Watson's Water Hammer Pulse: Eponym, Observation, Causes
Famous quotes containing the words watson, water, hammer and/or pulse:
“Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The tower nearest the water gets the moonlight first.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Long lion days
Start with white haze.
By midday you meet
A hammer of heat....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Whoever has had the experience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word sublime means, if it be not the intimations, in this infant, of a terrific force.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)