Abstract
Roome, Keith, and Phemister 1 showed that in experimental shock due to hyperventilation, anaphylaxis, histamine administration, spinal cord section, and spinal anesthesia the bleeding volume averaged 49.9% of the calculated blood volume (one-thirteenth of the body weight). This is only slightly less than the average of 58.6% obtained for control dogs. On the other hand, in shock due to trauma to an extremity, hemorrhage, plasmapheresis, and intestinal manipulation, the bleeding volume was greatly reduced, averaging 21.8%. Blalock 2 showed that the cardiac output in shock due to severe burns is markedly reduced. The work reported in the present paper was done to determine the bleeding volume in shock due to experimental burns.
Dogs under complete barbital anesthesia and suffering no pain were used throughout the work. They were burned and at intervals the carotid blood pressure, hematocrit reading, and hemoglobin percentage were determined. When the blood pressure had fallen to about 80 mm. of mercury the animal was bled to death through a large carotid cannula. The time interval between the burning and the bleeding varied from 16 to 24 hours in 7 dogs. The hematocrit reading and hemoglobin percentage rose steadily from the time of burning to the time of bleeding. On the other hand, the blood pressure usually remained near the normal level until the end of the experiment and then fell more rapidly. The average bleeding volume in the 7 burned dogs was 20.3% of the calculated blood volume (one-thirteenth of the body weight) as shown in Table I. This figure agrees quite well with that of 21.8% which Roome, Keith, and Phemister found in similar types of shock. The extent of the burn in these dogs may be gauged as follows: After death the dogs were bisected according to the method of Blalock 3 and the weight of the normal and burned sides of the animal compared.
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