An Attempt to adapt Explanted Tissues to an Anticonvulsant (‘Trimedal’) and to Phenobarbital

Abstract

IT has been shown repeatedly that explanted animal cells are able to adapt themselves to several kinds of substances, some of which are used in medical practice and some of general biological interest (adaptation and addiction to opium alkaloids¹ and ethyl alcohol^2,3, adaptation to salvarsan⁴, to mercuric salts, dinitrophenol and atropin⁵). Adaptation and addiction to other substances are known from in vivo experiments and from clinical practice. Adaptation and abstinence phenomena have been reported in animals⁶ and man⁷ given barbiturates for a long time, but explanted tissues of rats given barbiturates in vivo over a prolonged period did not tolerate a toxic dose of the drug⁸. No reports about direct adaptation of explanted tissue cells to barbiturates or anticonvulsants are known to us.