EFFECT OF MORPHINE AND DILAUDID ON THE ILEUM AND OF MORPHINE, DILAUDID AND ATROPINE ON THE COLON OF MAN

Abstract

Plant and Miller¹ originally demonstrated that morphine in ordinary doses does not place the human intestine and colon at rest. This observation has been adequately confirmed. However, some authors have reported that the stimulation of motility, depending on the dose, is brief (twenty to sixty minutes) and is followed by depression,² and others have observed that the stimulation is of much longer duration.³ It has been amply demonstrated that morphine delays the passage of material through the alimentary tract,⁴ but the cause of the delay has not been clearly established. Functionally, gastrointestinal motility is of two general types, namely, propulsive and nonpropulsive.⁵ In the dog morphine affects these two types of motility differently.⁶ The propulsive activity is temporarily increased and is then abolished, while nonpropulsive activity is increased for several hours. Whether morphine similarly affects the motility of the human small intestine and colon has not been adequately