Errors in oxygen tension measurements caused by halothane.
Halothane, independent of oxygen tension, increased the signal of the gold/silver-silver chloride microelectrode. The output of microelectrodes at different oxygen tensions in the presence of increasing amounts of halothane has been measured. Halothane causes an increase in the electrode signal which is proportional to its concentration. This effect results from the polarographic reduction of halothane. It is concluded that the gold/silver-silver chloride microelectrode cannot be used to measure oxygen tension during halothane anaesthesia.
Transcutaneous oxygen monitoring during anaesthesia
underweight patients just as one would be wary of giving drugs On a weight-re1ated basis to grossly overweight patients. In a much larger study in patients given midazolam on a weight-related basis we have found enormous individual variation in response to the drug. This is quite unpredictable and often unrelated to body weight. Dr Cormack's letter prompts us to analyse this larger series of patients and we have continued to measure plasma levels in another group and we hope to report on this at a future date.
Control of the homopause level
Abstract This paper reviews the hypothesis that internal gravity wave breaking in the factor responsible for upper atmosphere turbulence generation and control of the number density at the homopause level. Available data from Mars and Earth support the hypothesis, originally introduced by Lindzen, that breaking thermal tides are responsible for the necessary turbulence. The lowest-order, equatorially trapped, westward-propagating diurnal tidal mode is the primary cause on the Earth, and lower-order westward-propagating semidiurnal modes are the primary cause on Mars. The frequencies and vertical wavenumbers of the responsible modes determine the eddy diffusion coefficients; energy density is only indirectly involved by determining which modes can break. A general scale relationship between tidal heating and velocity amplitude can be used to assess the breaking potential of tidal modes, and is used here as the basis for arguing that the number density at the Martian homopause is likely to have been stable over much of geologic time. Difficulties with this approach arise in the cases of Venus and Titan because of their peculiar zonal winds. For Jupiter and Saturn, internal gravity waves generated by nontidal mechanisms probably control the homopause.