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British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2001, Vol. 86, No. 5 614-617
© 2001 The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia

Editorial

Editorial III

Development of the concept of a liquid pulmonary alveolar lining layer

K.L. Dorrington and J.D. Young

A remarkable phenomenon has occurred in recent years in pulmonary physiology that may tell us something about the survival of orthodoxy despite ever more aggressive peer review. We refer to the widespread persistence of the notion that the pulmonary alveoli are normally lined with liquid. This notion persists in the scientific community in the face of a simple law of physics that shows it to be impossible. The law, appreciable by schoolchildren who blow soap bubbles, is that the only stable liquid–gas interface has the shape of a sphere, unless gravity upsets things badly. As a pulmonary alveolus is not a spherical structure, its epithelium cannot support a continuous thin lining with liquid that follows the non-spherical contour of its surface. It requires some explanation, therefore, why both the specialist medical literature, and school and university biology and physiology texts, are dominated by the view that the ‘alveolar surface is . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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B. Nagyova, M. O'Neill, and K. L. Dorrington
Inhibition of active sodium absorption leads to a net liquid secretion into in vivo rabbit lung at two levels of alveolar hypoxia
Br. J. Anaesth., December 1, 2001; 87(6): 897 - 904.
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