The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of humanities and other time as part of the social sciences. It can also be seen as bridge between these two broad areas, incorporating methodologies from both. Coming back to our world Pharmacology, which has rich history and enduring heritage. It is formed by lot of passionate personalities with grit to serve the mankind. “It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition”. -Henry James There are many stories of both success and failures which shaped our today’s world. Starting from the 18th century Aspirin to the current generation monoclonal antibodies each drug has their own version of stories. In this review I will introduce you to few prominent personalities like the indefatigable Domagk, a person who fought maladies with magic bullets, the Fleming’s story of serendipity, the interesting story of a struggling young orthopaedician’s quest towards invisible treasure and few other stories. we are lucky to have these great discoveries in our past which help the current generation of researchers to make conceptual advances. Dr. Ranjan, Junior resident, JIPMER

1. FJ-88’s

2. 11 September 1943

3. Coast Of Bari , South Italy

4. Smokey clouds over
John Harvey

6. Why is this story in the beginning !!?
2 Reasons !!

7. History Of Pharmacology
Dr. Ranjan K M
JR, JIPMER
Subject Review, 08-12-18

8. ?????
1. Drug with 1$ patent ??
2. First Drug to reach outer space ??
3. Youngest noble laurate for Physiology & Medicine ??
4. Scientist who injected his own invention as therapy for the first
time to treat his own 4-year-old daughter, who had developed
septicaemia ??
5. One herbal product, which Gandhi had a practice of using ??
6. The first mass marketing of a pharmaceutical agent ??
7. The world’s first billion-dollar drug ??
8. Who was the person who discovered the drug after more than
600 intensive screening ?? On his 606th time became
successful…
9. A doctor was said to have treated the surviving pilot’s wounds
before succumbing to his own injuries, When his flight in which
he was travelling crashed ??

9. Pharmacology
• The Greek word “ Pharmakon ”,
• Originally meant “a magic charm for treating diseases”.
• Later Pharmakon came to mean
“a remedy or a drug”

10. Brief History of Pharmacology
Ancient age Pharmacology
Medieval age Pharmacology
Renaissance Pharmacology
Golden Era of Pharmacology

11. Primitive Period
 Primitive people uses drugs for mystical or magic
powers rather than their physiologic effect.
 They believed that evil spirits caused diseases.
 Alcohol and opium were one of the first medicinal
plants

12. Ancient period
• Ancient Indian Pharmacology
• Ancient Greek Pharmacology
• Ancient Egyptian Pharmacology
• Ancient Chinese Pharmacology
( Before Christ )

13. Cradle of civilization - oldest phase of medicine
Egypt

14. • Knowledge of the human anatomy & the natural
substances around them to treat diseases.
• In 2nd century BC, the Egyptians collected all their
knowledge in 42 secret books, of which last six
contained medical knowledge.
Ancient Egypt

15. The Ebers Papyrus
• It is believed to be the oldest
preserved medical document dating
from 1552 B.C
• Ebers published it in English and Latin
in 1875.
• The Papyrus is 30 cm in height and
20.23cm in length

16. The Ebers Papyrus
The Papyrus is divided into 110 pages. It is written in the hieratic script.
Includes 36 prescriptions, 700 magical formulas and folk remedies

17. Ancient India
Mythology
Lord Brahma Daksha Ashwini twins Indra
• Bharadwaja rishi goes to heaven to learn about medicinal
herbs of earth.
Vedic
• Agnivesha (circa 800 BC), a student of Atreya who is
credited to be the author of the first Indian “Treatise on
medicine”

18. Ayurveda: Science of Life
Samhita’s by 2 prominent physicians
Charaka Samhita: 1120 illnesses, 700 medicinal
plants, 64 preparations from mineral sources, and
57 preparations based on animal sources.
Sushruta Samhita: Many fields of medicine,
including cataract operation, laparotomy, vesical
lithotomy, and diabetes.

20. Ancient Greece
• The Greek god of health and father of
medicine-Asklepios / Aesculapius.
• Hippocrates:
 The paragon of the ancient physician.
 Hippocratic Oath & Hippocratic
Corpus.
 Works are still relevant and in use
today.

21. Pedanius Dioscorides (ca. AD 40–80)
• Empirically derived method for observing and
classifying drugs by clinical testing.
• He knew mild laxatives and strong purgatives,
analgesics for headaches, antiseptics for wounds,
emetics to rid one of ingested poisons,
chemotherapy agents for cancer treatments, and
even oral contraceptives.

22. Dioscorides' De materia medica
About 600 plants are covered, along with some animals and mineral
substances, and around 1000 medicines made from them.

23. Ancient China
• Shen Nung- founder of Traditional Chinese medicine.
• In 206 B.C. The Han Dynasty which is regarded as the
most glorious time period in Chinese medical history.
• Qinghao was first described for the treatment of fever in
"The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency
Treatments" by Ge Hong (AD 281-340) in the Eastern Jin
Dynasty

24. Recipes for 52 kinds of diseases, 168BC
"Recipes for 52 kinds of diseases“(168 BC) on the piece of silk on which qinghao
was recorded as a remedy for haemorrhoids.

25. Medieval period
 Dark Age – A period of about 600 years.
 Characterized by the destruction of old civilization and
little progress in learning. There was a spread in
Christianity & Islam.
 Practice was a constant tradition of unstructured
testing of the relationships between drugs and
ailments

26. Arabian influences
• Arabs are the originator of syrups, alcohol, and
aromatic water.
• Produced the first pharmaceutical formula or set of
standards (Apothecary System)
• Prominent figures like Avicenna, Geber gave lot of
contributions towards medieval pharmacology

27. Avicenna ( Ibn-e-Sīnā ) (980–1037 AD)
• He wrote more than 450 treatises on medicine,
philosophy, logic, and astronomy.
• “Al-Qanun-fi-al-Tibb “(The Canon of Medicine)
 The book is divided into 5 volumes on medical science,
neuroscience being described in the third volume.
 Simple remedies were always preferable to complex
drugs because they had fewer side-effects.
 Over 300 simple and compound medicines are recorded

28. Geber (760 AD)
 The great notable personality in Arab chemistry
and reputed discoverer of nitric acid, sulfuric acid,
and nitro-hydrochloric acid.
 He is also called “Father of Chemistry”.

29. Religion & Medicine
Educated as a priest, function as both philosopher and
physician; physicians were often scholars and scholars
were churchmen.
“Experimentum ad hoc et est verum: lacerte murorum decoquantur ter in oleo et ex
oleo inungantur supercilia”.
[Tried and true: lizards of the walls are cooked three
times in oil and (when removed) from the oil are smeared
on the eyebrows]
Prescription from The Eye Book of Master Peter , 13th century

30. Renaissance Pharmacology
13th -17th Century
• The period of progress in medical knowledge.
• A renewed interest in the ideas of the ancient Arabs,
Greeks and Romans.
• Medical discoveries- Pavement for modern
Pharmacology.

31. Paracelsus (1493-1541 AD)
• He raised the dignity of
Chemistry & Pharmacology by
emphasizing its necessity for
medicine and by demonstrating
the superiority of chemical
medicines over "disgusting
decoctions of the Galenists"

32. William Withering (1741 –1799 AD)
• The discoverer of digitalis.
• In 1785, published
“An Account of the Foxglove and
some of its Medical Uses”
• Which contained reports
on clinical trials and notes on
digitalis's effects and toxicity

33. James Lind (1716 – 1794 AD)
• He was a pioneer of
naval hygiene in the
Scottish Royal Navy.
• Conducting one of the first
ever clinical trial, he developed
the theory that citrus
fruits(Vit-C) cured scurvy.

34. Edward Jenner (1749 –1823 AD)
• His work is said to have
"saved more lives than the
work of any other human“.
• On 14 May 1796,Jenner
tested his hypothesis by
inoculating James Phipps, an
8yr-old boy of his gardener.

35. Anaesthesia
First public clinical demonstration of Nitrous Oxide
was done in 1845 for Dental extraction was given by
Horace Wells for tooth extraction. But unfortunately
patient cried in pain. Horace wells became frustrated
& finally committed suicide by cutting his femoral
artery.

36. Others….
Leonardo da Vinci
Amatus Lusitanus
Ambroise Paré
Andreas Vesalius
Hieronymus Fabricius
Josephus Struthius
William Harvey.

37. Golden Era
Ethnopharmacology
Antibiotic Pharmacology
Cancer Pharmacology
Receptor Pharmacology
Endocrine Pharmacology
Tuberculosis

38. Ethnopharmacology
• The natural product drug discovery.
• Traditional Indian Medicine (Ayurveda) & Traditional
Chinese Medicine have long history and are of the
great living traditions.

39. Morphine
• The first ever alkaloid to be isolated from any plant.
• It was first isolated from Foxglove plant between 1803
and 1805 by Friedrich Sertürner.
• Merck began marketing it commercially in 1827.
• Sertürner named the substance Morphium after the
Greek god of dreams, Morpheus.

40. “When you examine a man with an irregular wound . . . and that wound is
inflamed . . .[there is] a concentration of heat; the lips of that wound are
reddened and that man is hot in consequence . . .then you must make cooling
substances for him to draw the heat out . . . leaves of the willow”.
(Papyrus, 1552 BC)

41. Aspirin
• Willow leaves and its bark, myrtle leaves, and a
number of other plant extracts rely for their
effect on the presence of the very simple organic
acid, salicylic acid.
• Felix Hoffman managed, on August 10, 1897,
acetylated the phenol group and he obtained
acetylsalicylic acid in a pure and stable form.
• Bayer was quick to register it under the name
“Aspirin” on Feb 1, 1899.
NAMING !!! Guinness Record!!!
MASS MARKETING!!!

42. Era of Advertisements !!

43. Reserpine
• It was isolated in 1952 from the dried root
of Rauwolfia serpentine.
• Its molecular structure was elucidated in 1953 and
natural configuration published in 1955 by R. B.
Woodward .

44. Artemisinin
• Qinghao (Artemisia annua L) is indigenous all over China and
grows abundantly.
• Tu Youyou extracted pure form
of artemisinin & dihydroartemisinin in 1972, She shared
the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with William
C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura.
"soak a handful of the Qinghao herb in one
liter of water, strain leaves to get extract, and
then drink it all”.
(168 BC in Changsha)

45. • Rauwolfia alkaloids for hypertension
• Psoralens for vitiligo
• Holarrhena alkaloids in amoebiasis
• Guggulsterons as hypolipidemic agents
• Mucuna pruriens for Parkinson’s disease
• Piperidines as bioavailability enhancers
• Baccosides for mental retention
• Picrosides for hepatic protection
• Phyllanthins as antivirals
• Curcumines for inflammation
• Withanolides and many other steroidal lactones and
their glycosides as immunomodulators

46. Cancer pharmacology

47. • In 1946, Dr.Farber & Dr.Yellapragada Subbarao -
Aminopterin synthetic antifolate.
Dr. Sydney Farber Dr. Y. Subbarao

48. Bari Incident
• Post incident medical examiners secretly performed
autopsy of dead victims and bio-chemical tests with
haematological study of survivors.
• White blood cells were virtually vanished in their test
results, bone marrow was depleted.
• Then US Govt gives contract to L. Goodman & A.
Gilman to investigate on Mustard gas.

49. Gertrude Elion displayed
significant activity of 6-
mercaptopurine (6-MP) & 6-
thioguanine against a wide
variety of rodent tumors and
leukemias.
Wonder Woman!!

50. Antibiotic pharmacology

51. Paul Ehrlich
The Idea of selective interaction of
chemical substances
{Salvarsan,in 1910}
Edison
of
our
field ???

52. Gerhard Domagk
{Prontosil rubrum}
Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1939
“A new control for infections
had been discovered”
(The New York Times report, 1932)
Franklin Jnr treatment
in 1936

53. Alexander Fleming
{ Serendipitous invention of
Penicillin,1928 }
Story
of
Fortuity??

55. Endocrine pharmacology

56. “Diabetus Ligate pancreatic duct of dogs. Keep dogs
alive till acini degenerate leaving Islets.
Try to isolate the internal secretion of these to relieve
glycosurea”
(Banting’s 25 words lead to Insulin discovery, 1921)

57. Dr Fredrick Banting
{ In the early 1920s, along with Dr. Charles Best }
In 1923 Banting and John Macleod received the Nobel
Prize in Medicine Banting shared the award money
with Best.

58. Receptor pharmacology

59. John Newport Langley
Credited with postulating a
“receptive substance” in nerve
stimulation
Otto Loewi
Formulated an idea for testing
the hypothesis of chemical
transmission

60. Others contribution..
• Henry Dale - chemical theory and he coined the
terms adrenergic and cholinergic to describe the
actions of autonomic and motor nerve fibers.
• Raymond Ahlquist postulated in 1948 that the action
of norepinephrine on postsynaptic sites was
mediated by two types of adrenergic receptors,
Which he called alpha(α) and beta(β).
• Julius Axelrod received his Nobel Prize for his work
on the release, reuptake and storage of the
neurotransmitters epinephrine and norepinephrine.
• Sir James Black developed Propranolol & Cimetidine.

61. “Essential to research success is neither outstanding
scholarship, nor exceptional intelligence, but rather
motivation and commitment. This does not mean
working in the laboratory day and night, but you
think about the problems you are currently working
with all the time, no matter what other activity you
are engaged in”
(Dr.Julius Axelrod,1970)

62. 1st Anti-TB drug
Selman Waksman and Albert Schatz & in the centre is
Donald Reynolds
The discovery of streptomycin, in 1944.

64. • The history of Pharmacology shows how societies
have changed in their approach to illness and
disease from
• In the Middle Ages, the growth was minimal,
because of religion.
• During the Renaissance, understanding of anatomy
improved and improved understanding of Patho-
physiology.
• The mid-20th century was characterized by new
biological treatments, such as antibiotics,
anticancer drugs, antidiabetic drugs, Anti-Tb drugs.
These advancements.

65. THANK YOU

66. ?????
Drug with 1$ patent ??
First Drug to reach outer space ??
Youngest noble laurate for Physiology & Medicine ??
Scientist who injected the drug he invented for the first time to treat his own 4-year-old
daughter, who had developed septicaemia ??
One herbal product, which Gandhi had a practice of using ??
The first mass marketing of a pharmaceutical agent ??
The world’s first billion-dollar drug ??
Who is the person who discovered the drug after more than 600 intensive screening ?? On
his 606th time became successful…
A doctor who met with an flight accident, he was said to have treated the surviving pilot’s
wounds before succumbing to his own injuries ??