You might as well learn about pneumonia now, since it is the mechanism of death for most people "dying of a long illness".

In pneumonia, there is fluid and neutrophils inside the air spaces of the lungs.

Blood flowing through these areas cannot get oxygenated. Yet the area will actually receive extra blood because it is inflamed. This is what makes pneumonia so lethal.

This is a section of lung from a pneumonia patient. The neutrophils appear to be floating in space. Actually they are suspended in watery tissue fluid.

With your study partners, find:

• the neutrophils

Hotshots:

Can you find the membrane, only a cell or so thick, which forms the wall between two little air spaces?

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Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences