A 67-yr-old female patient gave a history of allergy to lignocaine. When she was challenge-tested with the intradermal injection of 0.5% bupivacaine 0.2ml she had a systemic reaction. This reaction was accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of complement C4 in the plasma, which indicated that the reaction was immunologically-mediated. This is the first report of allergy to a local anaesthetic drug which has been documented by concurrent immunological changes.

Chlormethiazole has proved useful for prolonged sedation in patients receiving artificial ventilation of the lungs during intensive care. In short-term infusions sedation and unconsciousness can be produced quickly and reversal is rapid on stopping the administration. After prolonged infusion, however, recovery is much slower because of accumulation of the drug. The pharmacokinetics of chlormethiazole in both short and prolonged infusions were studied in four patients. Following brief administrations the drug disappeared very quickly from the blood as a result of re-distribution and the patients wakened after a few minutes. Unconsciousness was associated with plasma concentrations in the range of 3--5 micrograms ml-1. After 48 h administration, recovery was much slower, the elimination half-life varying from 3.5 to 12.1 h.

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The adverse reactions to i.v. anaesthetics which occurred during a 3-yr period in one hospital were investigated. Sixteen reactions were reported; 13 of these occurred in a total of 7906 administrations of Althesin, two in 45 546 administrations of thiopentone and one in 630 administrations of methohexitone. The pathological process was identified in 10 patients. Most reactions were caused by activation of the alternate pathway for complement conversion.

The effect of [bis-(4-methyl-1-homopiperazinylthiocarbonyl)-disulfide] (FLA-63) (40 mg/kg, i.p.) on acquisition and retention in four different avoidance tasks was evaluated in mice. In all tasks animals were submitted to a training session on one day and to a retest session 24 h later. The drug or its vehicle were given either 2 h prior to training and/or retest (pretrial treatments) or immediately after the end of the training session (posttrial treatments). Two hours after injection, FLA-63 was found to lower brain norepinephrine (NE) levels by 51% without affecting those of dopamine (DA). Pretrial administration of the drug resulted in poorer performance of step-through and step-down passive avoidance as well as of step-up active avoidance in retest sessions. There was no apparent posttrial effect of the drug nor any effect on acquisition in these tasks. The drug was without influence on either acquisition or retention in an any-way passive avoidance task in which the response required from the animals was immobility. No evidence for state-dependent learning was detected in any of the tasks. The data are consistent with the hypothesis of an involvement of NE either in memory processes or in events parallel and related to memory processes. The present results rule out, however, several such possible parallel events (effects on acquisition, motor disturbances, and effects on reactivity to shocks).