SINCE previous studies of the effect of drugs on the pulmonary vessels have been reviewed by Wiggers [1921], Tigerstedt [1923] and Daly [1932], it is not necessary for us to present a connected historical survey.We will discuss earlier work only in so far as it bears directly on our own experiments, which were devised with the chief object of obtaining information regardingthe site of action on the pulmonary circulation of various pharmacologically active substances which are found in tissue extracts.In early work on this subject the assumption was usually made that any observed effects of drugs on the resistance of the pulmonary vessels to the flow of blood were due to an action on the pulmonary arterioles. The suggestion that changes in the tone of the pulmonary veins might appreciably affect the resistance originated partly from the study of the action of drugs on isolated veins [Inchley, 1923[Inchley, , 1926 Franklin, 1932, who gives other references], and partly from observations of the lung volume when the circulation was intact [Luisada, 1928;Mautner and Pick, 1929]. Mautner and Pick have shown that the blood flow through the portal system of the dog is much influenced by the resistance offered by the hepatic veins under the action of histamine, and they give evidence suggesting that histamine also causes the pulmonary veins to constrict.The conclusions of Mautner and Pick regarding the portal circulation have been confirmed and extended in an investigation carried out in this laboratory [Bauer, Dale, Poulsson and Richards, 1932]. The present work was undertaken with the object of applying similar methods to the study of the behaviour of the pulmonary vessels. It was hoped that fresh light might be thrown on the importance of the pulmonary veins by