Abstract
Summary
The lungs of mice, subjected to whole-body vibration of 25 Hz at ± 10g for a period of 30 min, as well as of a group of nonvibrated control mice, were excised and lung weight and lung hemoglobin concentration was determined. From these values, the weight of pulmonary blood and water were calculated as indices of pulmonary blood content and edema, respectively. It was found that mice dying during vibration showed a significantly greater amount of blood, but not of edema fluid, than survivors. No difference in lung whole-blood content was found between the surviving mice and control mice. It is concluded that an increase in pulmonary whole blood content is a major factor in vibrational lethality, and that pulmonary edema contributes little to the incidence of death due to whole-body vibration.
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