Arthur Guyton

Arthur Clifton Guyton (September 8, 1919 – April 3, 2003) was an American physiologist best known for his studies on cardiovascular physiology and his Textbook of Medical Physiology, which quickly became the standard text on the subject in medical schools. The first edition was published in 1956, the 10th edition in 2000 (the last before Guyton's death), and the 12th edition in 2010. The 15th edition published in 2025 is the latest version available. It is the world's best-selling medical physiology textbook.

Textbook of Medical Physiology is one of the world's best-selling physiology books and has been translated into at least 13 languages (the textbook memoriam states 13, but the online memoriam states at least 15.)

From the ninth edition onwards, John E. Hall co-authored the textbook. However, all prior editions were written entirely by Guyton, with the eighth edition published in 1991. Subsequent editions, including the latest, preserve his legacy within the title, Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology. He has also published renowned textbooks on neurosciences.

Guyton is most famous for his experiments in the 1950s which studied the physiology of cardiac output and its relationship with the peripheral circulation (see e.g. chapter 23 of Guyton 1976 edition, or chapter 20 of both Guyton 1991 and Guyton & Hall 2006 edition).

It was this work which overturned the conventional wisdom that it was the heart itself that controlled cardiac output. Guyton instead demonstrated that it was the need of the body tissues for oxygen which was the true regulator of cardiac output. The "Guyton Curves" which describe the relationship between right atrial pressure and cardiac output form the basis for understanding the physiology of circulation. This subject is well described in Guyton's textbook which contains references to the original publications.

Guyton's model uses right atrial pressure as an independent variable (causal variable) but it's incorrect. The cardiac output is the independent variable.

In Guyton model's venous return curve, he plotted the right atrial pressure on the x-axis and it can suggest incorrectly that the right atrial pressure was the independent variable in the experiments.

'See also A Mathematical Model of the Human Respiratory Control System