551 



The Action of Certain Drugs on the Isolated Human U terus. 



By James A. Gunn. 



(Communicated by Prof. C. S. Sherrington, F.E.S. Received March 7, — Eead 



April 30, 1914.) 



(From the Pharmacological Laboratory, Oxford.) 



I have elsewhere shown* that, in experiments on the isolated mammalian 

 heart, it is perfectly possible to keep the exsected heart in cold Locke's 

 solution at ordinary room temperatures for hours and still to obtain powerful 

 and regular contractions of the heart when, after this procedure, it is 

 subsequently perfused with warm oxygenated Locke's solution in the usual 

 way. Similar observations have been made on other contractile tissues and 

 will be dealt with in another communication. 



In the meantime, it is sufficient to point out that those observations open 

 an easy way to experiments on a certain number of isolated human tissues, 

 removed for surgical reasons, by which experiments certain questions can be 

 answered which cannot readily, if at all, be decided in any other way. 



So far as I am aware, this is the first time that pharmacological 

 experiments of this nature on isolated human tissues have been performed, 

 and by the simplification of technique dependent upon those observations on 

 the survival of involuntary muscle at ordinary temperatures, a field is open for 

 exact quantitative pharmacological experiments immediately upon those 

 tissues, whose reaction to drugs it is the final aim of pharmacology to deter- 

 mine. These experiments can be made under similar conditions to, and 

 therefore entirely comparable with, experiments made on tissues of those 

 mammals ordinarily used for pharmacological investigation. 



One of the questions which require to be answered has regard to the 

 nature of the sympathetic innervation of the human uterus and its response 

 to certain drugs. 



It has been shown by Langley and Andersonf that the sympathetic 

 nerve supply to the uterus of the rabbit is motor in quality, whether the 

 uterus is in the pregnant or non-pregnant condition, and that adrenine has a 

 similar motor effect on it. On the other hand, it was discovered independently 

 by CushnyJ Dale§, and Kehrer|| that the uterus of the cat responds to 



* Gunn, ' Journ. of Physiol.,' vol. 46, p. 508 (1913). 



t Langley and Anderson, 'Journ. of Physiol.,' vol. 19, p. 122 (1895) ; Langley, ibid., 

 vol. 27, p. 252 (1901). 



\ Cushny, 'Journ. of Physiol.,' vol. 35, p. 1 (1906). 

 § Dale, 'Journ. of Physiol.,' vol. 34, p. 163 (1906). 

 || Kehrer, " Arch, fur Gynakol.,' vol. 81, p. 160 (1906). 



