Physiologists have long been interested in the interaction between the heart and vasculature. Until recently,the concept of ventricular vascular interaction has found important clinical application. The description of ven-tricular function in terms of both the time-varying elastance and the pump function graph and the quantification of vascular function in terms of impedance are two major developments of biomechanics. This paper presents a summary ofthe history of the researchs on the interaction between he...