Some observations on dynamic lung compliance during intermittent positive pressure respiration.

Lung compliance is the volume of air that can be introduced into the lungs by a unit change in transpulmonary pressure, and is the reciprocal of the elastic resistance. In this investigation, lung compliance was measured when the pattern of ventilation imposed upon totally paralyzed conscious patients was varied. There were five patients, each of whom had been tracheotomized; two of these were suffering from poliomyelitis, two from polyneuritis, and one from injury to the cervical spine.