Fig. 1. FEV¹of 10 asthmatic volunteers (mean ± SD) at baseline, after salbutamol (black symbols) or saline (open symbols) inhalation, following lidocaine (4%; circles) or dyclonine (1%; squares) inhalation, while endotracheally intubated, and after extubation, respectively. Intubation under topical anesthesia with lidocaine causes significantly less airway irritation than with dyclonine. Pretreatment with salbutamol significantly improves FEV¹compared with baseline (‡) and attenuates the response to tracheal intubation without outweighing the difference between lidocaine and dyclonine. (‡,*P < 0.05)