Postgraduate Medical School, 1956–1960

Abstract

I returned to Hammersmith Hospital in the spring of 1956 to join the new program in respiratory physiology. We had the first mass spectrometer that had been specifically designed for respiratory research. It had just been constructed there by Kemp Fowler, another Australian. We took full advantage of this to study to obtain as much information as we could from expired gas, including a measurement of ventilation-perfusion inequality in patients with lung disease. However another very exciting development soon occurred. The MRC had built a medical cyclotron at Hammersmith, and among other things it produced radioactive oxygen 15 with a half-life of only 2 min. When we inhaled this, we were astonished to find that there was a dramatic difference of pulmonary blood flow from the top to the bottom of the upright lung. This opened up the whole new area of research on the effects of gravity on the lung. One example was a calculation of the regional differences of gas exchange down the lung. An intermission at this time was that my father sent me an air ticket to make a short visit to Australia, and I decided to go and return through the United States. I visited many of the major centers working on respiratory physiology, and was duly impressed by the opportunities there.