抄録
Among poikilothermal vertebrates and invertebrates, there are many useful materials for pharmacological research including the primary screening of drugs.
In our country, some species have been used in the fields of pharmacy and medicine, frog and toad are rather popular for the screening of cardiotonics, less commonly killifish for the pharmacological research of digitalis, crab for the assay of gamma-aminobutyric acid. However, generally speaking, many of those are less familiar to pharmacologists or medical scientists than to zoologists. As those lower animals are rather remote from human beings, and no systematic work has been done to utilize them as experimental animals. Besides, the majority of those animals used currently have been given no consideration for selecting, breeding, and for care. So, it is necessary to enlighten the usefulness of those animals for research and bioassay.
Following items are included in this article.
1) General features of poikilothermal vertebrates and invertebrates.
2) Species widely used for scientific research in Japan.
3) Some hints on the usefulness for experimental purpose of organs from poikilothermal animals.
4) Problems in the utilization of lower animals.
5) New and old literature, mainly with respect to the effect of drugs.
