The rise and fall of compartmental analysis.

The concept of compartment evolved in the contexts of radioactivity, physiology, pharmacology and tracer kinetics. Recently compartmental models have been compared with 'physiological models', even though in most cases the same, or stricter hypotheses, are necessary for the validity of these latter models. This paper shows that the methods of compartmental analysis are valid only if some specific hypotheses are valid. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.