Influence of the rate of sweating on the inhibitory dose of atropine.

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Abstract
Before the injection of atropine, sweating in resting men, measured by continual weighing, increased with environmental temperature from 2 g/min at 35 C to 13 g/min at 52 C. Atropine sulfate was infused intravenously at rates between 0.01 and 0.10 mg/min after rapid intravenous injections of from 0 to 0.5 mg. Larger rates of infusion were required to inhibit sweating at 52 than at 35 C. The accumulated dose (y) in [mu]g/kg required to inhibit sweating by one-half increased with the control rate of sweating (x) in g/m2 min according to the equation y = (2.6 [plus or minus] 0.3) + (0.76 [plus or minus] 0.15) x. The rapid revovery after the end of the infusion and the failure of the inhibition to progress as the dose accumulated at slow infusion rates suggested that the effect of atropine was being opposed by an added stimulus generated by the increase in body temperatures during the period of reduced sweating. The theory of a surmountable antagonism between atropine and endogenous acetylcholine at receptor sites on the sweat glands appears to explain the results.

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