Ketamine hydrochloride(ketamine) is a non-barbiturate anesthetic agent chemically designated as dl-2-(0-chlorophenyl)2-(methylamino)-cyclohexanone hydrochloride. Ketamine anesthesia has been found distinctively different from that induced by conventional anesthetic agents, as it provides profound analgesia without significant impairment of respiratory function or stimulation of cardiovascular activities thus avoiding hypotension and are preserved the protective pharyngeal and laryngeal reflexes. In addition, ketamine appears to have muscle relaxation properties. This latter clinical finding, however has not been experimentally substantiated since few reports have appeared on the effect of ketamine on muscle relaxation. The present study therefore, was undertaken to determine whether this agent affects the muscle activity during d-tubocurarine block. The experiment was performed on sixteen rabbits weighing 1.8 to 2.5kg and these were divided into two groups; eight rabbits for control and eight for th study group. All animals were intubated through a tracheostomy under general anesthesia with nembutal 40mg/kg given intravenously. Respiration was controlled by means of a Harvard animal respirator. The body temperature was kept at 35 ℃ to 36 ℃ with a thermo-blanket. The common peroneal nerve and anterior tibial muscle was exposed and the nerve stimulator was applied to the nerve muscle preparation. The twhitch height of the muscle contraction was recorded on a biophysiograph through the force displacement transducer. The common peroneal nerve was stimulated supramaximally using a single twitch, square wave of 0.2 msec duration at a frequency of 0.1Hz once every 10 seconds. The degree of neuromuscular block following intravenous injection of d-tubocurarine 1mg/kg was measured in the control group. And in the study group ketamine 5mg/kg was administered intravenously when 25% of twitch height of muscle contraction was obtained spontaneously after the intravenous injection of d-tubocurarine 1mg/kg. The changes of the twitch height of muscle contraction and the time of spontaneous recovery in the study group were compared with those of the control group. The results were as follows: 1) The times and degree of maximal single twitch depression were obtained at 194.8sec and 87.3% in the control group and were at 197.5 sec and 87.8% in study group. No significant difference was observed. 2) Recovery index of the control group was 1,560.0 sec and recovery index of the study group was markedly prolonged to 2,387.5 sec(53.0% prolongation). 3) Mean decrease of single twitch height was 8.8% soon after the intravenous ketamine 5mg/kg when 25% of twitch height was obtained after the intravenous d-tubocurarine 1mg/kg in the study group.