Word: alveoli
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Ward said that slides of lung tissue from the fetus involved in the Edelin case displayed collapsed, partially-collapsed and expanded alveoli, or air spaces. He concluded that the state of the lung cells was due to respiration of air by the fetus before it died...
...Stretch. Strictly speaking, the University of Arkansas' Dr. Richard V. Ebert told a meeting of the New York Heart Association, emphysema is a more or less permanent inflation of the lungs resulting from the loss of elasticity in their deepest recesses. There the tiny alveoli, or gas-exchange cells, give up carbon dioxide and take in oxygen. Clustered around small arteries, they are so numerous that they create a huge area for gas exchange-about 85 sq. yds. in the average adult...
...emphysema, not only do many of the individual alveoli lose their elasticity, so that they do not exchange enough carbon dioxide and oxygen, but much of the lung wall itself loses its stretch. The lungs tend to remain inflated. What the patient is aware of, said Dr. Ebert, is shortness of breath-especially when he begins to exert himself. The condition gets progressively worse until the victim finds himself winded after less and less exertion. Ultimately he is out of breath even when sitting still...
Subjected to Stress. Deeply inhaled smoke, the researchers found, irritates the cells that line the tiniest chambers of the lung (alveoli). The walls of the alveoli thicken, lose their elasticity and much of their ability to do their vital job of exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen. Subjected to sudden stress-such as a cough or sneeze-the alveolar walls rupture; part of the lung becomes useless...
Even while it is attacking the alveoli, dense smoke also damages the small arteries that carry blood to the lung surface for oxygenation. The artery walls become fibrous and thickened. Soon, internal deposits on the thickened walls make the arteries so narrow that little blood can get through. Eventually many tiny arteries are blocked completely...