Metabolic changes in avian blood and their effects on determination of blood gases and pH.

Oxygen consumption. MO2 and CO2 production rates, Cco2, of duck blood samples anaerobically stored at 41 degrees C were 0.041 and 0.

Gas transport efficacy of gills, lungs and skin: theory and experimental data.

The general functional principles encountered in respiratory organs of vertebrates are investigated. Generally three steps are involved in external gas exchange in vertebrates: (1) convective transport by flow of external respiratory medium, air or water (=ventilation); (2) transfer of gas between external respiratory medium and blood by diffusion (=medium/blood transfer); (3) convective transport by blood flow (=perfusion). According to the arrangement of external medium flow relative to capillary blood flow four construction principles may be distinguished: (a) counter-current system (fish gills), (b) cross-current system (avian lungs), (c) ventilated pool system (mammalian lungs), and (d) infinite pool system (amphibian skin).

Remote-controlled device for sampling arterial blood in unrestrained animals.

A device is described that allows remote-controlled sampling of arterial blood in unrestrained animals. An artery and a vein are dissected in local anesthesia and connected by a plastic catheter, the sampling catheter. The flow of arterial blood in this artificial shunt can be blocked by kinking the sampling catheter by a remote-controlled device.