Comparison of the Effects of General Anesthetics on the End‐plate of Skeletal Muscle

The ability of volatile anesthetics to depress carbachol-induced depolarization at the end-plate region of guinea pig lumbrical muscles was examined with the moving fluid electrode technique, and the concentration of each anesthetic agent required to depress depolarization by 50 per cent was determined. There was a close correlation between the values obtained and reported anesthetic potencies in man. Thus end-plate depolarization of guinea pig lumbrical muscle appears to provide an excellent in-citro model for the study of the mechanism of anesthesia.