Time elapsed: 1 - 2 HRS

Pulsatile circulation continues during normal activities.

NOTE In these cartoons the cells represented as red or blue dots/circles are circulating white corpuscles [i.e. not erythrocytes]. The term "corpuscle" includes platelets. A high proportion of this white corpuscle mass are PHAGOCYTES [saprophytes - scavenger corpuscles] whose function is to eat ["phago"] any dying or dead cells they encounter in the blood and/or vascular wall or valve cusps.

The red bodies denote "fresh", well oxygenated, corpuscles, and the mauve / blue denote stages of deoxygenation of ischaemic-hypoxic corpuscles which have consumed or "lost" their supply of oxygen and are compelled to function by anaerobic glycolysis. This facultative metabolic pathway gives them an ability to continue functioning for considerably longer periods in zones of ischaemic-hypoxia such as the tissue layers lining valve pocket cusps may become during non-pulsatile circulation.