The volume responses of various vascular beds to a general blood loss. A study carried out in rats exposed to two different procedures of anesthesia.

Abstract

AbstractSeveral vascular compartments have been claimed to have marked blood depot functions. In the present experiments an attempt has been made to compare different vascular beds of the rat in this respect, by evaluating the tissue blood content in bled and non‐bled animals. Erythrocytes and plasma‐albumin were labelled by radioisotopes, and the whole rat was then immersed in liquid nitrogen. The lungs, the heart with the thoracic vessels, the splanchnic organs and samples from skeletal muscles were then removed and their content of radioisotopes estimated. In animals anesthetized intraperitoneally with pentobarbitone the pulmonary blood volume and the skeletal muscle blood content were markedly reduced after a blood loss of 12 % When, however, the animals were anesthetized by ether‐inhalation, and by a subsequent small dose of pentobarbitone i.v., then a similar bleeding caused a marked reduction in the splanchnic blood volume, but almost no reduction in the pulmonary blood volume or the skeletal muscle blood content.