Reappraisal of Ventricular Thresholds in Hypothermia

¹ From the Department of Physiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Data presented elsewhere (Am. J. Physiol. 181: 362; 553, 1955), purporting to show that the ventricular threshold is radically reduced during systole in acidotic hypothermic dogs, were obtained with an experimental stimulating technique now known to be inadequate for the purpose. The conclusions based on these experiments are therefore invalid. The problem of ventricular thresholds in hypothermia is currently being reinvestigated with results which indicate relatively slight deviations from the normal.