Artificial Pneumothorax

The carbon dioxide partial pressure in body cavities and tissue spaces under various conditions

“…Attention will be directed here to some of the researches of physiological significance and of importance to the present work. In 1914 Webb, Gilbert, James and Havens (3) injected nitrogen into one side of the thoracic cavity of one monkey and a similar amount of air into one side of the thoracic cavity of another monkey of about the same size and weight, and found the C02 percentages to be 8-52 and 8-06 respectively after 48 hours. Rist and Strohl(4) concluded that there is a balance between the gases of a pneumothorax cavity and the gases in the venous blood; whilst Dautrebande and Spehl() pointed out that it was more correct to state that the composition of the gases was regulated by the blood bathing the compressed lung, this being richer in C02 than that of the normal lung, because of the lessened circulation due to the compression.…”