500 THE AMERXCAN HEART’ JOURNAL

the artery decreases while that flowing out increases. This dissimilarity in flow may persist for as long as a minute. The author states that he wishes to emphasize the fact that the type of venous flow varies not with the site chosen for study but with

the individual animal.

Histamine evokes a sharp &crease in flow through both the artery and vein, almost

simultaneous with the fall in arterial pressure. ‘The venous response may be delayed, thus providing for storage of blood in the skin. It was also observed that if the dose of histamine was larger, the curve of increase of peripheral flow might be tem-

porarily interrupted only to continue on to its peak simultaneously, with reestablish-

ment of arterial pressure. This phenomenon appeared to be plainly a passive one to the author and might be capable of explaining variation in the published results.

The results obtained with aeetylcholine were for the most part very similar to those

obtained with histamine, but were, perhaps, more pronounee,d. The study demon- strates clearly the occurrence of withdrawal or admission of blood to the depots in

the skin. In passing, the author mentions the fact that the skin is apparently. tell to fifteen times as sensitive to adrenalin as the kidney.

J. M. S.

BLrtschi, W. : The Reaction of Coronary Arteries to Acetylcholine. Arch. f. d. ges.

Physiol. 238: 296, 1936.

Because of confusion over the question of the reaction of the coronary arteries

to acetylcholine, the literature of which the author briefly reviews, BHrtschi thought

that it was worth while to test in a standar,d manner a rather large number of speci-

mens. Twenty-nine preparations of ox-heart coronary arteries were tested one hun-

dred and eleven times. The almost invariable result was contraction. In one prep-

aration contraction was obtained eleven successive times without diminution. It

followed as great a dilution as one part in 25 million in one instance; sometimes as

much as one part in 500,000 was needed. Atropine abolished the reaction, adrenalju

reversed it; that is to say, adrenalin was followed by dilatation. The experiments

were carried out on excised rings of arteries, 2 mm. wide, obtained from animals one

and a half to two and a half years old, at, times varying from one hour to three

days after slaughter. That atropine abolished the reaction would appear to obviate

the objection to the use of excised rings. J. M. S.

Dragstedt, Carl A., and Mead, Franklin B.: A Pharmacologic Study of the Toxemia Theory of Surgical Shock. J. A. M. A. 108: 95, 1937.

The abrupt vasomotor symptoms of anaphylactic shock may be duplicated by

rapid intravenous injection of a large dose of histamine. In each instance the pres-

ence of a vasodepressor, smooth muscle stimulating substance which is apparentlr

histamine, can be detected by the usual biological assay of hepadnized blood plasma

or thoracie duct lymph. In nine experiments on dogs in which the surgical shock was produced by traumatization of one or both hind legs or by traumatization of

the extruded intestine, or a combination of these procedures, no physiologically

active substance could be found in the blood or lymph.

In an attempt to duplicate the gradually progressive blood pressure fall of surgical shock in order to eliminate the objection that histamine might not be detected because

it is soon inactivated, the authors used slow continuous intravenous injection of

varying concentrations of histamine without success in exact reproduction of surgical

shock.

Four twin experiments were performed using two dogs each. In the one do?

surgical shock was produced, in the other shock was produced by histamine sub-