Effect of urecholine on the stomach, intestine and urinary bladder.

Recent interest has been aroused in the drug urecholine® 1 (urethane of beta methylcholine chloride) by the demonstration of the stimulatory action of this drug on gastric motility following complete vagotomy. This action was first reported by Machella 2 and confirmed by Grimson, 3 Stein, 4 Smith 5 and Dragstedt. 6 Starr and Ferguson 7 have reviewed the early literature and have demonstrated the value of urecholine® in postoperative urinary retention. The stimulatory effect of urecholine® on intestinal motility was reported by Youmans 8 and has been further studied experimentally by Postlethwait. 9 METHOD The effect of urecholine® on the stomach was studied by means of kymographic tracing of gastric motility as well as clinical observations. A detailed report of the gastric motility studies was previously published. 10 The effect of urecholine® on intestinal motility was studied by clinical observation of patients with adynamic ileus. The effect of urecholine® on