Thyroid and adrenal factors in hyaline membrane disease

Abstract

Pulmonary fibrosis implies antecedent lung injury which may or may not include inflammatory responses of the ordinary sort. The onset of breathing at mammalian birth is a different kind of lung injury, one occasioned by great physical stretch of the collapsed but moist fetal lung, and immediate exposure to over ten times the level of oxygen resident in the fetal organ. Access to a large archive, the perinatal mortality review from the Chicago Lying-In Hospital, has provided information very relevant to these questions, including the first regular documentation of the pulmonary lesion complex as related to clinical care: beginning in the late 1930s. The lesion complex is called hyaline membrane disease (HMD) from the condensation at the tissue:gas interface of protein exuded from the lung and its circulation.