Intensification by eserine of the action of acetylcholine upon the secretion of adrenalin

628

THE

he concludes that, whatever lation, prolonged stimulation servation does not adduce which corresponds to that nerves.

AMFtRICAN

HEART

JOURNAL

the immediate reaction to acute carotid sinus stimuis in some way compensated for. 5. Clinical obany evidence of forms of neurogenic hypertension seen after extirpation of the cardiac pressor-receptor J. M.

Hermann, H., Jourdain, F., Morin, G., and the Action of Acetylcholine Upon the Sot. de biol. 124: 317, 1937.

Vial, J.: Secretion

Intensification of Adrenalin.

S.

by Eserine of Compt. rend.

Although the action of eserine in increasing and prolonging the action of acetylcholine is well known, the demonstration that the drug also calls forth a greater secretion of adrenalin following the injection of acetylcholine has not been demonstrated. By the ingenious device of connecting the adrenal vein of a dog whose adrenal gland has been denervated to the jugular vein of a dog sensitized to the effect of adrenalin by destruction of the thoracic, lumbar, and sacral spinal cord, it was easy to demonstrate this fact. When acetylcholine is injected into the dog with denervated adrenals (donor) arterial pressure falls promptly, but no change occurs in the second (transfused) dog due to liberation of adrenalin which counteracts the fall in pressure. If eserine is now given to the donor dog before acetylcholine, not only is the fall of the arterial pressure in donor (dog with denervated adrenals) sharper and longer, but the transfused dog (sensitized to adrenalin) shows a marked rise of pressure. Evidently, then, the secretion of adrenalin as well as that of acetylcholine has been markedly increased. J. M. 8. Battro,

A., Braun-Menendez,

traction

in Bundle-Branch

E., and

Block.

Orias, Rev.

0.: Asynchronism argent. de eardiol.

of Ventricular 3: 325,

Con-

1936.

By optically recording in the same person the apex beat, the venous pulse, the central arterial pulse, and the heart sounds, two records at a time, it is possible to recognize whether or not both ventricles beat synchronously. Applying these procedures in twenty patients showing electrocardiograms considered as characteristic of the so-called bundle-branch block, the following conclusions were drawn: Of seventeen patients with electrocardiograms belonging to the so-ealled “common type ” (right bundle-branch block, according to the old nomenclature), in fifteen there were obvious signs showing that the right ventricle contracted first, thereby indicating really a left bundle-branch block. In the other two cases no signs of asynchronism could be detected. From three cases with electrocardiograms characteristic, according to Wilson and his associates, of a right bundle branch, in one, a clear precedence of the left ventricle was actually found, but in the remaining two cases all signs of asynchronism were lacking. The electrocardiogram by itself, therefore, is not a reliable means for establishing a diagnosis of complete bundle-branch block with its mechanical consequences. It is the adequate recording of the mechanical events due to the heart action which affords the only means to determine the existence of a ventricular asynchronism, thereby allowing the recognition of a delayed excitation through one of the bundle branches, with possibility of ascertaining the location and the degree of the functional disturbance. AUTKOR;