Differential Effects of Two Amphetamine‐barbiturate Mixtures in Man

Mixtures of amphetamine and a barbiturate continue to be fairly widely used in psy- chiatry, especially in the treatment of mild anxiety and depression (Lancet, 1962; British Medical Journal, 1962; Ornstein & Whitman, 1963), but relatively little is known about the effects of such mixtures from laboratory experiments on man. In a previous investigation The mixture used contained proportionally several times as much barbiturate as a widely used commercial preparation, Drinamyl (Smith, Kline & French), which contains dexamphetamine sulphate and amylobarbitone sodium in a ratio of 1: 6.5. In the experiments to be reported the earlier mixture was therefore compared with a mixture which contained the two drugs in approximately the same proportions as Drinamyl, except that for practical reasons amphetamine sulphate and cyclobarbitone were again the compounds used. Since the main clinical aim of using these drug mixtures appears to be to induce favourable changes in subjective reactions, especially in moods, a standard- ized and detailed method was adopted to elicit reports of the subjects' feelings. Otherwise the test methods were similar to those previously used.