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| | Otto Loewi - Nobel Lecture |
 | | In this way it was proved that the nerves do not act directly upon the heart, but rather that the direct result of nerve stimulation is the release of chemical substances and that it is these which bring directly about characteristic changes of function in the heart. |
 | | The nerve substances, considered as vago- or sympathico-mimetic substances, would have to act like these, that is to say, they would have to stimulate the myoneural junction and release substances, etc. on their own. |
 | | Quite apart from this, the supposition that the nerve substances stimulate the nerve somewhere is quite superfluous by the proof shown above, that the alkaloids atropine and ergotamine which inhibit the activity of the vago- and sympathico-mimetic substances, do not, as was supposed, paralyse the nerves, but are simply antagonistic to the substances. |
| nobelprize.org /medicine/laureates/1936/loewi-lecture.html (4845 words) |
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