Process
It involves cutting the underside of the subject's forearm, in an area where there is no hair or visible veins. The cut is of a standardized width and depth, and is done quickly by an automatic device.
A blood pressure cuff is used above the wound, to maintain venous pressure at a special value. The time it takes for bleeding to stop (i.e. the time it takes for a platelet plug to form) is measured. Cessation of bleeding can be determined by blotting away the blood every several seconds until the site looks 'glassy'.
Read more about this topic: Bleeding Time
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systematic application of known laws to nature causes the unknown to reveal themselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Any balance we achieve between adult and parental identities, between children’s and our own needs, works only for a time—because, as one father says, “It’s a new ball game just about every week.” So we are always in the process of learning to be parents.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion, Dennie, and Palmer Wolf. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“... in the working class, the process of building a family, of making a living for it, of nurturing and maintaining the individuals in it “costs worlds of pain.””
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (b. 1924)