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Experiments giving evidence of active Na and C1 ion fluxes across large canine blood vessel walls (aorta, vena cava) in vitro have been presented. The information has been obtained using ion tracer techniques after Ussing and with diffusion cells of the Hogben type. The available data suggest that the membranes are satisfactorily oxygenated by the bathing solutions saturated with oxygen at atmospheric pressure. Evidence is offered which indicates that active ion transport does occur across the aorta and vena cava in in vitro experiments. Under the conditions of the experiment net Na and C1 flux takes place from intima to adventitia across the aorta, and from adventitia to intima across the vena cava at low measured potential differences. The possible relationships of derangement of active ion transport mechanisms, produced by electric currents and tissue injury potential differences, to intravascular thrombosis are alluded to. It would appear that sodium and chloride fluxes across large blood vessel walls in vitro occur at least in part as the result of metabolic processes and cannot be explained simply on the basis of diffusion across a semipermeable membrane.Applied electrical fields and those created by currents of injury in injured tissues appear related to intravascular occlusion of blood vessels (1-3). Abramson, Gorin, and Ponder (4), Furchgott and Ponder (5), Ponder apd Ponder (6), and others have indicated that the cellular elements of blood at a pH of 7.40 move toward the positive pole in an electrophoretic cell. Vascular occlusion can be potentiated in normal vessels by application of a positive electrode (7,8). Occlusion is delayed in an injured blood vessel exposed to the field about a cathode (9, 10). Therefore it is postulated that potential differences in the physiologic range and related currents of injury in perivascular tissues may act as causal agents in intravascular occlusion, by means of their electrophoretic or other effects upon the cellular and possibly liquid elements of the contained blood.As a corollary, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the blood vessel wall

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