The most obvious hemostatic vascular reaction is constriction of the blood vessel after injury. This is important in large arteries because platelet adhesion and clotting are insufficient to arrest bleeding. Delayed surgical aid notwithstanding, the survival of some persons who have lost limbs in accidents is due to constriction of their main arteries. Other vascular reactions to injury have only a subsidiary hemostatic effect. Mammalian platelets are nonnucleate cells produced by large bone marrow cells called megakaryocytes and circulate in the blood in a resting, inactive form for an average of 10 days. The normal platelet count in humans is ...(100 of 3465 words)