[Historical sketches on classical physiology of the heart: the initial phase of systole].

: Crucial physiological advances in the phase analysis of cardiac performance with respect to their historical and biographical aspects are elucidated. The described period started from the early measurement of blood pressure (1733) and the first graphical representation of cardiac performance (1861), continued by the progress in recording of cardiac electrical activity and a detailed study of the consecutive events throughout the cardiac cycle (1921) and, finally, reached the recording of changes in the left ventricular dimensions and shape during the phase which precedes the start of blood ejection (1955-2005).