The Effect of Atropine on the Gall-bladder(1958)
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE EFFECT OF ATROPINE ON THE GALL-BLADDER
To the Editor:
For years it has been accepted that atropine and atropine-like compounds are indicated in the therapy of biliary colic. The rationale appears to be that atropine, through parasympathetic blockade, causes relaxation of smooth muscle.The gall-bladder is under both nervous and hormonal control. The exact nature of the nervous control is debatable. Best and Taylor, in their textbook of physiology, seem to favour the view that vagal fibres are motor to the gall-bladder and inhibitor to the sphincter of Oddi. One might postulate, then, that a parasympathetic blockade with atropine would result in relaxation of the gall-bladder and possibly increased tonus of the sphincter of Oddi. Such an action would produce distension of the gall-bladder and possibly stasis of bile flow.
Recently, in our laboratory, we have necropsied 14 young dogs which were given a daily subcutaneous injection of 16 mg. per kg. body weight of atropine alkaloid dissolved in olive oil, for a period ranging from 7 to 21 days. This dose and vehicle were selected to ensure a maximum vagal blockade over a 24-hour period with only one daily injection. We were impressed with the grossly distended gall-bladders containing thick, greenish-black bile in the atropinized animals. The controls had normal-appearing gallbladders with a slightly viscid amber-coloured bile.
Most of the atropinized animals had reduced bile-staining of the duodenal contents. There was an increase in the volume of bile which averaged 490 ±140% (mean + standard error). There was marked thinning of the walls of the gall-bladders.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1830230/?page=1
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Here Peat talks about atropine / jimson weed, aka Datura stramonium, infamous for its hallucinogenic and intoxicating properties, but medicinal in this context:
"...the medical standard for a long time was to use muscle relaxant like atropine or jimson weed to relax the duct out of the gallbladder and then take olive oil to stimulate the contraction"
"But is there something, what did you say, Doc, you do before the gallbladder flush that is good to do to relax the muscles around the gallbladder?
The jimson weed. It works like atropine, very similar chemical. And that 50 to 100 years ago was recognized as very effective and safe, but the atropine, partly because drug culture used it for entertainment, it lost a lot of its medical use [...] A piece of leaf the size of your thumbnail sometimes was enough"
