Well over a century ago, Otto Frank, working at Carl Ludwig’s Institute of Physiology in Munich, studying the isolated, blood-perfused, frog heart preparation, demonstrated that there are two distinct pressure-volume relations in the heart: one for isovolumic twitches and a second (located inferiorly) for afterloaded twitches. Whereas Starling, working at UCL two decades later, referenced Frank’s publication (to the extent of re-printing its seminal Figure), he appeared not to have tested Frank’s finding. Hence, he remained silent with respect to Franks’ contention that cardiac pressure-volume relations are contraction-mode-dependent. Instead, he concluded that “The energy of contraction, however measured, is a function of the length of the muscle fibre” - a conclusion that has become known (at least in the English-speaking world) as ‘Starling’s Law of the Heart’. This provides us with at least three conundra: (i) why did Starling present only one pressure-volume relation whereas Frank had previously found two, (ii) why, then, do we speak of The Frank-Starling relation, and (iii) how did Frank become largely forgotten for twelve decades among English speakers? This review will attempt to address and comment on these conundra.

一个多世纪以前，在慕尼黑卡尔路德维希生理学研究所工作的奥托弗兰克研究分离的、血液灌注的青蛙心脏准备，证明心脏中有两种不同的压力-容积关系：一种用于等容抽搐和第二个（位于下方）用于后负荷抽搐。二十年后在伦敦大学学院工作的斯塔林引用了弗兰克的出版物（重印了其开创性人物的程度），但他似乎没有测试过弗兰克的发现。因此，他对 Franks 的论点保持沉默，即心脏压力-容积关系依赖于收缩模式。相反，他得出的结论是：“无论如何测量，收缩能量都是肌肉纤维长度的函数。”——这个结论（至少在英语世界）被称为' Starling's Law of the Heart'。这为我们提供了至少三个conundra：（一）为什么八哥目前只有一个压力容积关系，而弗兰克此前曾发现了两个，（二）那么，为什么我们说话的弗兰克-斯塔林关系，及（iii）十二十年来，弗兰克是如何在讲英语的人中被大部分人遗忘的？本次审查将尝试解决和评论这些难题。