Abstract
The contracture produced by caffeine in isolated strips of human muscle was measured in normal specimens and in samples from three volunteers who had recovered from severe episodes of malignant hyperthermia and who came from at-risk families. The hyperthermia was not accompanied by rigidity in one patient and his family but the rigidity was pronounced in the other two. The muscle from the non-rigid patient reacted as normal. The muscles from the two patients who had had rigidity showed enhanced sensitivity to caffeine and to the potentiating effect of halothane. The calcium accumulation of isolated sarcoplasmic reticulum was not affected by halothane in preparations from control muscle but was inhibited in those from the rigid patients. the observations suggest that the metabolic error in hyperthermia with rigidity causes intracellular calcium metabolism to be vulnerable to drugs. Malignant hyperthermia with and without rigidity seem to be disease entities with different ætiologies.
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