A new in vitro method of drug assay of nasal blood vessels.

If nasal mucosa is removed from the dog's septum, mounted in a muscle bath and treated with a small dose of a nasal decongestant, the mucosa contracts, It appears, from the nature of the tissue and the nature of the drug responses, that nasal vascular smooth muscle is the contracting element. If the nasal mucosa is treated with a vasodilating agent, such as histamine, there is no relaxation response unless the mucosa is first pretreated with a vasoconstricting agent such as epinephrine. Both vasoconstricting and vasodilating drugs induce dose-related responses. It appears that this new preparation may be useful to assay drug effects in the absence of nervous and humoral control.