Effect of Surgical Sympathectomy on the Sensitivity to Epinephrine of the Blood Vessels of Muscular Segments of the Limbs 12

Increased sensitivity to epinephrine of blood vessels deprived of their sympathetic nerve supply was first demonstrated in man by Freeman, Smithwick, and White (2). In patients with Raynaud's disease they found that the fall in tem- perature in the fingers resulting from daily intra- venous epinephrine infusions became greater on the eighth to eighteenth day after the limbs had been sympathectomized. The increase in sensi- tivity was thought to be much greater following postganglionic denervation than after preganglionic decentralization (3). In monkeys, Ascroft (4) estimated that the postganglionic operation caused more than three times as much hypersensitivity as the preganglionic. By contrast Fatherree, Adson, and Allen (5) considered that both opera- tions caused about the same degree of hypersensitivity, which opinion is supported by Duff (6). All these studies were confined to the blood vessels of the skin.