The significance of the supra-renal capsules in the action of certain alkaloids / by H.H. Dale and P.P. Laidlaw.

  • Henry Hallett Dale
Date:
[1912]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The significance of the supra-renal capsules in the action of certain alkaloids / by H.H. Dale and P.P. Laidlaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [.Reprinted from the Journal of Physiology, Vol. XLV. No. 1, 1912.] THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUPRA-RENAL CAP¬ SULES IN THE ACTION OF CERTAIN ALKALOIDS. By H. H. DALE and P. P. LAIDLAW. {From the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories, Herne Hill, S.E.) Introductory. During the last few years we have come across several instances of alkaloids producing the effects of sympathetic nerve stimu¬ lation when injected intravenously, but failing to reproduce these effects when applied to isolated tissues. The particular instance which first attracted our attention was that of the non-pregnant cat’s uterus, which is characteristically inhibited in the body by a number of alkaloids which leave it unaffected, or cause it to contract, as an isolated organ. The investigation of this discrepancy formed the starting point of the experiments with which this paper deals, and in the course of which the problem has been extended to the consideration of other organs. Action on the uterus. The use of the horn of the cat’s or rabbit’s uterus, isolated from the body and suspended in warm oxygenated Ringer’s solution, as a test- object for drugs, was introduced by Kehrer1. Fardon2 used the same method, repeated Kehrer’s observations and tested some additional drugs. Both these observers ascribe to nicotine an inhibitor action on the isolated uterus of the non-pregnant cat. This is hardly in accord with our experience. Of a large number of uteri giving pronounced inhibition with minute doses of adrenine, many have given no response to nicotine ; some have acquired an increased tonus; a few have been weakly inhibited by large doses (10 mgms. in 250 c.c. Ringer’s solution) such as Fardon used. The same is true of cytisine, the active alkaloid of laburnum, which, as we have shown elsewhere3, has an action closely 1 Arch. f. Gyn. lxxxi. 1. S. 160. 1907. 2 Biochem. Journ. hi. p. 405. 1908. 3 Journ. of Pharm. and exper. Therap. in. p. 205. 1912.