The rigidity of the skull and the inertial characteristics and incompressibility of its contents cause the elastic cerebral arteries and veins to act over brief periods of time like rigid tubes of relatively small diameter. Poiseuille's law is applicable to their behavior. The use of this law, in combination with the fact that, during brief intervals, the total volume of the cerebral arteries and veins remains constant, permits derivation of a mathematical expression for the average arterial flow in terms of an average arterial radius. The differentiated equation has five positive roots which represent maxima and minima of the average flow in terms of the average arterial radius. The theoretical results have physiological implications and potential clinical usefulness, which are discussed.