Lung
The lungs are a pair of organs which fill the thoracic cavity. The primary function of the lungs is to remove carbon dioxide from the blood and replace it with oxygen. They are connected to the trachea which bring air into the lungs from the external atmosphere.
The trachea branches into two bronchi, which branch further into alveoli. Alveoli, the main component of the lungs, are small sacs with capillaries in their walls where blood gases are exchanged. The alveoli are coated with surfactant, a complex lipoprotein, which lowers the surface tension of the liquid-air interface. Surfactant appears in the lungs prior to birth in mammals. Without surfactant the alveoli would collapse and the gas exchange would occur at a very low rate. Premature infants often lack surfactant: this condition is called hyaline membrane disease.
References
Antony, C.P. & G.A. Thibodeaw. 1979. Textbook of Anatomy and Physiology. The C.V. Mosby Company, St. Louis. 731 pp.
Crafts, R.C. 1985. A Textbook of Human Anatomy. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York. 906 pp.
Eckert, R. & D. Randall. 1983. Animal Physiology, second edition W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco. 830 pp.
Van Amerongen, C. The Way Things Work; Book Of The Body. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
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