io6 



Scientific Proceedings (91). 



This property, common at least to some war gases, could be 

 utilized practically in gassed soldiers who are also wounded and 

 require surgical intervention. It is very likely that they would 

 need little if any anaesthetic. The gassed soldiers would thus be 

 spared another danger and a valuable drug would not be needlessly 

 expended. 



173 (i35i) 



Localized pulmonary edema in cats after the inhalation of a war 



gas (CH 3 ) 2 S0 4 . 



By John Auer. 



[From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the 

 Rockefeller Institute.] 



In a number of cats which died or were killed 27-50 hours 

 after gassing with (CH 3 ) 2 S04, as described in the previous note, 

 a localized pulmonary edema was observed on autopsy. The 

 edema rarely involved the whole lung, but only a certain lobe or 

 portions of a lobe showed a striking degree of pulmonary edema. 

 The lobe involved was most frequently an upper or a middle lobe, 

 but the lower lobes were by no means exempt. The best example 

 of edema of a portion of a lobe was noted in the right middle lobe, 

 where a section near the hilus showed extreme pulmonary edema, 

 while the rest of the lobe was only moderately edematous. It 

 was by no means infrequent to find one lobe fairly saturated with 

 fluid while the rest of the entire lung tissue was practically free 

 from fluid. Hemorrhages and pulmonary congestion, it should 

 be noted, are not prominent features of the autopsy picture of the 

 lungs after gassing with (CH 3 )2S0 4 . 



The causation of this localized pulmonary edema obviously 

 must be due to some mechanism which affects the lung chiefly 

 at the site involved; it cannot involve the whole lung to the same 

 degree, for then the whole lung would have to be equally edema- 

 tous. This locally acting mechanism is apparently the combina- 

 tion of a partial or complete stenosis of a bronchus or bronchiole 

 with inspiratory dyspnea. These conditions are realized in cats 

 gassed with dimethyl sulphate, for a marked inflammation of the 

 respiratory passages with pseudo-diphtheritic membrane formation 



