Indirect measurement of blood pressure without a cuff.

This review covers the following topics: the palpation of the arterial pulse, the method of tonometry, the relation between blood pressure, arterial diameter and pulse wave velocity, the frequency dependence of the components of the pulse wave velocity, the influence of the state of the vascular smooth muscles on the pulse wave velocity, a special method to measure radial pulsations of the pulmonary artery, the so-called pulse transmission function and, finally, the influence of gravity on the arterial pulses.