SPINAL REFLEXES IN NICOTIN POISONING

¹ From the Department of Physiology of St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri

Using a method similar to the Claude Bernard experiment with curare, we found the following:

Spinal reflexes could be obtained in half of a series of frogs in which peripheral paralysis had been produced by nicotin.

In dogs spinal reflexes were obtained in 100 per cent of a series after peripheral paralysis had been produced by nicotin.

In 4 out of 5 quantitative experiments on dogs, it was possible to obtain a spinal reflex, in an advanced stage of nicotin poisoning, as readily as before the injection of nicotin.

The site of the loss of irritability in spinal reflexes involving skeletal muscle is chiefly peripheral instead of central.

Our experiments apply to dogs under artificial respiration otherwise the prompt development of asphyxia in fatal nicotin poisoning is sufficient to cause spinal paralysis.