Study of pulmonary edema in hypothermic rats.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe terminal condition of acute pulmonary edema in hypothermic rabbits, dogs, rats, and humans has been reported by a number of authors, but on no occasion has any effort been made to relate this finding to the cause of death. The following study was carried out in an attempt to determine whether such a causal relationship does exist in rats. Because both ventricular arrhythmias and various degrees of heart block have been described in the electrocardiograms of hypothermic animals, electrocardiographic studies were made in these experiments to establish whether there was any correlation between the pattern seen and the presence or absence of pulmonary edema. [TRUNCATED