Ten patients with idiopathic scoliosis and seven controls were studied for the purpose of investigating the ventilatory response and drive due to CO2 inhalation by the steady state CO2 response test. To evaluate the ventilatory drive for the respiratory output mouth occlusion pressure (P0.1) was used. The ventilatory response to CO2 of the patients was not significantly different from that of the controls. P0.1 for a given PCO2 stimulation or tidal volume in the patients was significantly higher than the control. Ventilatory output against P0.1, however, was not different in the two groups. The small tidal volume of the scoliotic patients seemed to be compensated by the high respiratory frequency with a large ventilatory drive in order to maintain adequate ventilation.