The influence of pathological conditions on active absorption of oxygen by the lungs / by J. Lorrain Smith.
- Smith, J. Lorrain.
- Date:
- [1898]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The influence of pathological conditions on active absorption of oxygen by the lungs / by J. Lorrain Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![\^Reprinted from the Jotirncd of Physiology. Vol XXII. No. 4, February, 1898.] THE INFLUENCE OF PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS ON ACTIVE ABSORPTION OF OXYGEN BY THE LUNGS. By J. LORE AIN SMITH, M.D., Lecturer on Pathology, Queens College, Belfast. {From the Pathological Laboratory, Queens College, Belfast.) It is a matter of common clinical experience that the most varied types of disease involve some damage to the lungs in the form of congestion, oedema or inflammation, and that the danger to life is much increased in any case “when such complications supervene. The basis of this relationship is a subject the investigation of which would throw much light on the nature of respiratory disease. Apart from these abnormal conditions of the lungs, the study of which is of interest to general pathology, we have also to consider a large group of diseases in which the morbid process originates in a lesion affecting the lungs themselves. The investigation of the function of the lungs which has been carried out by ]Ir Haldane and myself’, has shown that the process of oxygen absorption is subject to variations of a purely functional kind. Some of the conditions under which these variations occur we investi- gated, but we conflned our attention to those of a physiological nature. If we consider the relation of this activity to respiratory disease wo are confronted with a large variety of conditions which cause more or less serious damage to the lung tissue, and which therefore have in all probability a most important effect on the vital function of oxygen absorption. To simplify the investigation of this problem we may conveniently consider these conditions as forming two groups. 1. Conditions affecting the organism as a whole, as the state of fever and the infective process which fever usually accompanies. 2. Conditions in which the important element is some gross change in the lung tissue itself, such as congestion of the blood-vessels and exudation into the alveoli.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24930064_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
