arterio-contractile

From the facts detailed by Harvey, Goodwyn and others, which establish that in asphyxia the left ventricle of the heart ceases to contract before the right ventricle, the author infers that the irritability of the latter is greater than that of the former; and proposes to distinguish the first as arterio-contractile, and the latter as veno-contractile, from the circumstance of their being stimulated respectively by arterial and by venous blood.