Bruce C. Paton

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN COLD INJURY. II. THE PATHOGENESIS OF FROSTBITE.

Summary The necrosis of tissue following frostbite either may be due to direct injury to the cells or may be secondary to a vascular lesion. The frostbitten skin of rabbits ear was transplanted autogenously to the normal ear, and normal skin was simultaneously transplanted to the frozen area. The frostbitten skin survived on a normal tissue bed, whereas the normal skin necrosed on a frostbitten bed. The experiments suggest that much of the tissue damage following frostbite is reversible if the circulation to the frozen area can be restored.

Experimental studies in cold injury: I. The individual response to a standard cold environment

Summary In order to devise an experimental method for the production of a reproducible degree of necrosis following cold injury, the ears of rabbits were cooled under precise conditions in which the tissue temperature was monitored. Variations were found in the rewarming response elicited at about 10°C., but there was correlation between the final loss of tissue and the duration and depth of exposure to a tissue temperature below 10°C. The method described can be used to produce predictable losses of tissue, and should be suitable for the study of the pathogenesis and treatment of frostbite.

Reduction of splenic vascular resistance during perfusion by pluronic F68

Abstract Pluronic F68 (a nonionic surface-active agent) has been shown to decrease the vascular resistance in a series of 10 pig spleens perfused with human blood. Addition of Pluronic F68 produced a vascular resistance during heterologous perfusion comparable to that noted during homologous perfusion. In so doing it increased the duration of successful perfusion from 1 to 6 hours.

Surgery of Coronary Artery Disease

Operations for coronary artery disease constitute the majority of surgery for the treatment of cardiac disease in adults. It is appropriate, therefore, that a concise but informative book covering the whole field should be available. Professor Wheatley of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, has put together such a book. He has assembled a group of distinguished and experienced international authors who have been able to compress their knowledge into a volume of comfortable length and size. Every aspect of surgery for coronary disease is discussed, and in addition, there are good reviews of anatomy, physiology, pathology, epidemiology, and investigation, including both invasive and noninvasive techniques. Techniques of myocardial protection, the conduct of a bypass operation, the handling of difficult problems and complications, and clinical trials and results all receive adequate emphasis. The distinctions between cardiac surgeons and cardiologists seem to be fading with the development of new techniques for treating

Gibbon's Surgery of the Chest

The two-volume, latest edition of this work is a magnum opus by any reckoning. When the first copies came from the press the editors must have felt like Moses descending from the mountain, for within these two volumes is almost everything a surgeon could wish to know about surgery of the chest. More than 100 authors, not including the editors who shouldered more than their share of chapter writing, have written 1,636 pages of double-columned text covering every subject from the preoperative assessment of pulmonary function to the artificial heart. First, let it be stated that this is a superb book: detailed, authoritative, informative, beautifully printed and produced, and amazingly up to date. If a chest surgeon had to buy only one book as a source of information, this would be it. The bibliographies are extensive, and the short lists of seminal articles with small abstracts provided at the end

Color Atlas of Cardiac Surgery: Acquired Heart Disease

Atlases of surgery, as a class, are similar to those glossy volumes that adorn coffee tables. They look beautiful, are well conceived and meticulously printed, but are seldom looked at. This atlas is filled with well-printed and mostly well-photographed pictures of the technical details of standard cardiac operations. The experienced surgeon will skim quickly through the book, approving of some techniques, disapproving of others. Overall, he will probably learn little to make him change his methods. Nor would he go to this book to find out how to do some uncommon operation, preferring to use an original descriptive source. The junior physician beginning cardiac surgery, for whom this book has been written, would find this visual approach useful and more true to life, although not always as clear, as live drawings. But he is also likely to learn as much by assisting at a single operation. The persons most likely