Summary:
The changing sensitivity of myometrial autografts within rabbit earchambers to intravenous injections of oxytocin throughout the course of 6 normal pregnancies has been studied in a group of 5 female rabbits.
The myometrial autografts were shown to be sensitive to oxytocin from the 7th day of pregnancy.
The progressive reduction in the dosage of oxytocin necessary to produce myometrial contractions in the autografts has been shown to conform to a log hyperbolic curve.
The rather precise mathematical form relating minimum effective dose of oxytocin to day of pregnancy, obtained from these experiments, indicates that this preparation is of great potential value for the elucidation of the exact pattern of control of myometrial sensitivity throughout pregnancy.
The myometrial autografts increased very considerably in size during the progress of pregnancy and showed a rapid reduction in size post partum.
Associated with pregnancy, from as early as the 5th‐6th day, the vessels of the microcirculation, both in the grafts and in the earchamber fibrous tissue, developed very rapid pulsatile flow.
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