A Century of Pulmonary Gas Exchange

The period from 1905 to 2004 was a particularly important era in the history of pulmonary gas exchange. The dramatic increase in knowledge from rudimentary ideas at the beginning of the 20th century to today’s sophisticated analyses might be compared with the progress from the Wright flyer at Kitty Hawk in December 1903 to modern supersonic aircraft. However, I cannot resist the temptation to peek back one page to the beginning of the 19th century because in some ways that sets the stage for 1905.