AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF DIATHERMY

Abstract

1. Prevention of the access of air to one lung, while its circulation is intact, results in little, if any, change in the rate of heating of the lung by the diathermy current. 2. Occlusion of a main branch of the pulmonary artery during the flow of the current results in a sudden rise in temperature in the lung whose artery has been occluded, with subsequent heating, however, at the original rate. Under these circumstances death of the animal is accompanied by a precipitous rise in the temperature of both lungs. 3. When the pulmonary veins as well as the artery to one lung are ligated the circulation through the bronchial vessels is also stopped. Diathermy then results in a local rise in temperature in the lung equivalent to that seen in the other lung after death.