Cardiac output varies widely in normal individuals, and its measurement in congestive heart failure is complicated by pulmonary edema.
Limits resting cardiac output use in edematous failure; leaves open diffusion-independent methods for circulatory assessment.
Heart disease and the mechanism of circulatory failure have been the object of much investigative work during the past twenty years. One means of approach to this problem has been a study of the minute volume of the heart. The cardiac output of normal men, when measured at rest, may vary within wide limits, even in the same individual. Burwell and Robinson 1 studied the output of the heart in a series of normal individuals at rest, employing a method similar to the one used in this study. They found that the amount of blood expelled by the heart varied in different subjects from 3.5 liters a minute and 58 cc. a beat to 6.8 liters a minute and 103 cc. a beat. No method of measuring the output of the heart has been satisfactory in congestive failure, as pulmonary edema interferes with gaseous diffusion so as to render the lungs
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William C. Smith (1930) studied this question.
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