A New Inotropic Drug: Its Promise and a Caution

Cardiology, which rapidly embraced the principles of hemodynamic physiology with the introduction of cardiac catheterization in the late 1940's, has been much slower in adopting the tools of the molecular biologist. It was only in 1954 that most cardiovascular physiologists came to recognize that changes in the biochemical and biophysical processes involved in myocardial contraction played a major part in adjusting the pumping action of the heart to a variety of stimuli and pathologic conditions.1 These adjustments in the mechanical performance of the heart, subsequently referred to as changes in "myocardial contractility," remained ill defined until the 1960's, when attempts . . .