A quantitative method of biological standardisation can be regarded as satisfactory when it is simple, rapid and accurate (Burn et al., 1950). It may be of secondary importance whether a) the function studied is the same as that influenced by the drug in man, and b) the conditions of the experiment are »physiological«. For instance, both the United States Pharmacopoeia (1955) and the British Pharmacopoeia (1953) recommend a method for standardising the oxytocic hormone of pituitary (posterior lobe) preparations which is based on the depression of the blood pressure in a chicken (Coon, 1939) although in clinical practice only the action on uterine muscle is important. In another widely employed method for the standardisation of oxytocin which is also recommended in the British Pharmacopoeia, the contractions of the isolated rat uterus are measured (Holton, 1948) but at a temperature of 32°C. or less, i. e. well below the body temperature.
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Berde et al. (1958) studied this question.
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