ABSTRACT
The concept of employing organ perfusion for physiological and biochemical studies is not new. Early accounts of organ perfusion techniques in biochemical and physiological studies may be found in the descriptions of Baglioni [24] and Muller [226]. More detailed accounts of the historical development of organ perfusion techniques may be found in the works of Brodie [43] and Embden and Glaüssner [84]. Systematic early developments in organ perfusion techniques have been reviewed by Skutul [310] and Kapfhammer [148]. Increasing interest in the application of the techniques of perfusing isolated organs and tissues in biochemical and physiological investigations is apparent in the later works of Ross [287], Diczfalusy [77], and Ritchie and Hardcastle [283]. The interest in the application of isolated perfused organ techniques in studies on toxicological mechanisms is apparent in the increasing number of reviews appearing in the literature [24,63,64, 211-213,221,290,332]. Some investigators have advanced the term “
ex vivo
perfusion” to refer to the technique of perfusing and maintaining functional isolated organs outside the animal body.
