Erythrocyte sedimentation rate III tube diameter dependence in saline solution.

Erythrocyte sedimentation rate was measured in a physiological saline solution as a function of both the tube diameter d and the initial suspension length iota 0. All the sedimentation curves in the vertical tubes were found to overlap over the range 1 mm less than d less than 7 mm and 100 mm less than iota 0 less than 330 mm, within the precision of 8 %. The sedimentation curves in the tilted tubes fit well to an exponential equation of iota = a [1 - exp (-bt)], where iota and t are the medium length along the tube and the elapsed time from sample injection respectively: At fixed tilt angle theta and iota 0, a was roughly constant and b was roughly proportional to l/d, while at fixed theta and d, a was linearly proportional to iota 0 and b was constant. The initial slope ESR (theta) = (d iota/dt) t----0 = ab was represented by a unique straight line as a function of iota 0/d for each fixed tilt angle. The experimental results were compared with some recent theories.