Synephrin tartrate 2 differs from epinephrine in the absence of the OH group in the meta position on the benzene ring, and therefore has the same general formula as that of neo-synephrin.The reports on the pharmacological action of synephrin tartrate in animals stress the qualitative similarity to epinephrine (1,3,4,6,7). Kuschinsky found, in anesthetized animals, that the cardiac augmentor effect of synephrin tartrate is relatively greater than the vasoconstrictor action and that the lethal dose/therapeutic dose ratio was relatively greater compared to epinephrine. The same author showed that synephrin tartrate dilates the coronary vessels markedly. Synephrin tartrate is used to some extent in Germany instead of epinephrine for clinical purposes but it has not been adopted elsewhere, chiefly because of its low potency and the paucity of information as to its effect in man.
MATERIALS AND METHODSThe present paper is a report on results obtained with 22 normal subjects, from 18 to 40 years of age, all of whom were studied at several different dosage levels and were also tested with epinephrine and with neo-synephrin. The methods were identical with those used in our study of neo-synephrin (5). As in the previous study, the same requirements for basal state and controlled environmental conditions were maintained.