THE REACTION OF THE CERVICAL PORTION OF THE DOG'S OESOPHAGUS TO DRUGS

¹ From the Laboratory of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago

The results of these experiments indicate that the oesophagus reacts to drugs as does skeletal muscle and that it is not influenced by drugs acting on parasympathetic nerves. Thus we may say that the action of a drug influencing the nerve supply of an organ is a function of the organ and not of its innervation. This is consonnant with the accepted physiological fact that nerve impulses are not specific. Since drug action is quantitative only the normal function of an organ can be excited or depressed by drugs acting on its nerve supply the reaction being the same as if the nerve trunk were excited or destroyed. Thus it is the organ and not the nerves that responds to the drug.