[Age and changes in the adrenergic nerve supply of the lungs and various clinical aspects of the problem].

By means of classical neurohistological techniques and methods for revealing cholinergic and adrenergic neural plexuses, the development of pulmonary innervation has been studied in embryos and fetuses of the human being and rabbit. The mediatory stage in development of the pulmonary innervation begins on the 3d month of the human intrauterine development. The next important stages are the middle of the prenatal development and the 7th month of pregnancy, when an essential complication of the lung innervation takes place. By birth the neural apparatus of the human and rabbit lung is mainly formed, nevertheless, in 15% of newborns its underdevelopment occurs. This may be a predisposing factor for development of certain pathological processes, in particular, pneumosclerosis, and is demonstration of defective formation of the pulmonary parenchyma in some newborns. The principle on coincidence of the beginning of the mediatory stage in the development of the neural plexuses and the beginning of the fetal stage are supposed by the analysis of the pulmonary innervation development in the rabbit.