Description were made in our previous papers, I and II, that the causative materials of two independent outbreaks of allergy-like food poisoning contain unusual amount of histamine and a vagus-sitmulant of unknown structure. The posion was separated by paper chromatography and was confirmed by Magnus' method.
This paper deals with the physiological and pharmacological actions of this substance. The results obtained are as follows :
1. The poison is different from acetylcholine.
2. This substance seems to have an additive effect with histamine.
3. The skin reaction on rabbits and the shock symptoms on guinea pigs caused by injection of this substance seemed to agree with those of histamine.
4. As for the antagonism between this substance and anti-allergy drugs tested on contraction of intestine, anti-histamine drugs seems to be much stronger than auti-acetylcholine drugs.
5. These findings mentioned above may suggest that this substance seems to be an autonomic nervous toxin and resembles to histamine so far as its action is concerned. The authers wish tentatively to give a name “saurine” to this substance. The name “saurine” is referred to the English name “saury” for Cololabis saira, from which this poison was isolated for the first time.