Coronary arterial predominance or balance on the surface of the human cardiac ventricles.

Normal hearts obtained from suicide victims were studied after injection of gelatin containing red or blue pigment and a radiopaque substance into each coronary artery. Schlesinger's types of coronary artery unilateral predominance or bilateral balance were identified and their incidence determined. The relation to general factors of anatomical variation was also pointed out. Physiologic and clinical features were discussed on the basis of the morphologic pattern, diverse results recorded in the literature were pointed out, and some discrepancies explained. Hearts with right coronary artery predominance (73.5%) prevailed over left predominance (19.4%) and over the balanced hearts (7.1%). An evaluation of both the blood supply and drainage of the heart as a whole, not restricted to the superficial parietal arteries of the ventricles, would better meet the requirements of clinical cardiology.