THE USE OF THE BOVINE RETRACTOR PENIS MUSCLE FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF GANGLION-BLOCKING ACTIVITY OF NEUROMUSCULAR BLOCKING AND OTHER DRUGS

Inhibition of relaxation of strips of the bovine retractor penis muscl e induced by a standard dose of nicotine (30 mu M) was used for quanti tative assessment of the ganglion-blocking activity of eight neuromusc ular blocking agents that are in clinical use. The order of potency of the drugs studied was (+)-tubocurarine >> alcuronium > vecuronium > m etocurine >> pancuronium > atracurium >>> suxamethonium > gallamine. T he results have been compared to those obtained with other methods. On the basis of the present results, it is concluded that inhibition of the nicotine-induced relaxation of the bovine retractor penis muscle c an be used as an alternative, sensitive in vitro method for the assess ment of the ganglion-blocking activity of a neuromuscular blocking age nt relative to that of, for example, (+)-tubocurarine. Earlier results have showed that this method is useful also for the assessment of the ganglion-blocking activity of other drugs, because it has yielded com parable and reproducible results at the quantitation of this property of actual ganglion-blocking and various antimuscarinic agents. In addi tion, this method may be useful for rapid screening of ganglion-blocki ng activity.