A classic learning opportunity from Fenn, Rahn, and Otis (1946): the alveolar gas equation.

Understanding pulmonary gas exchange: ventilation-perfusion relationships.

This essay looks at the historical significance of four APS classic papers that are freely available online: Fenn WO, Rahn H, and OTIS AB. A theoretical study of the composition of the alveolar air at altitude. Am J Physiol 146: 637-653. 1946 (http://ajplegacy.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/146/5/637). Rahn H. A concept of mean alveolar air and the ventilation-bloodflow relationships during pulmona...

Ballistocardiographic Study of Changes in Cardiac Output Due to Respiration.

Performance as related to composition of alveolar air.

In a previous report (Rahn et al., 1946) some effects of hyperventilation on performance test scores were described. In these experiments oxygen was breathed at a simulated altitude of 30,000 feet. The results could be related to changes in alveolar carbon dioxide tension alone, since the alveolar oxygen tension never fell below the normal ground level range. The experiments reported below cons...

Venous pressure changes associated with positive intrapulmonary pressures; their relationship to the distensibility of the lung.

The measurement of relaxation pressures and other static intrapulmonary pressures (Rahn, Otis, Chadwick and Fenn, 1946) has been so useful in analyzing the mechanics of respiration and especially of pressure breathing that it has seemed worth while to make simultaneous measurements of peripheral venous pressure and relaxation pressure at various lung volumes as an aid to understanding the relat...

The physiological legacy of the Fenn, Rahn, and Otis school.

Extraordinary advances in respiratory physiology occurred between 1941 and 1956 in the Department of Physiology, University of Rochester. These were principally the result of a collaboration between Wallace Fenn, Hermann Rahn, and Arthur Otis. Remarkably, all three scientists had worked in very dissimilar areas of physiology before and, by their own admission, were largely ignorant of respirato...