PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF ADRENOLYTIC DRUGS AGAINST FATAL MYOCARDIAL EPINEPHRINE CONCENTRATIONS

¹ Division of Experimental Medicine, University of Vermont, College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont

Three adrenolytic drugs: Dibenamine hydrochloride, Priscol and Fourneau's 933F, were found to protect the heart of the rat either completely or partially against normally fatal doses of epinephrine and to permit the survival of normally fatal accumulations of epinephrine in the myocardium.

Dibenamine hydrochloride is by far the most potent, 933F the weakest of these drugs.

Their modes of action are different. Both 933F and Priscol seem to partially block the penetration of epinephrine into the myocardial cells, although not to the same extent; Dibenamine hydrochloride seems to render the heart itself insensitive to epinephrine without impairing, indeed even facilitating its excessive deposition and accumulation in the heart muscle.