Are Pulmonary Capillaries Susceptible to Mechanical Stress?

Abstract

The extreme thinness of the pulmonary blood-gas barrier has long been recognized. In fact, large portions of the barrier are so thin that they are at the limit of the power of resolution of the light microscope. It is only with the advent of electron microscopy that the cellular structure of the blood-gas barrier was elucidated. Forty years ago, Frank Low1 published the first electron micrographs of the lung parenchyma in laboratory animals and humans, and demonstrated the presence of a continuous epithelial lining of the alveolar wall.