page_title: Alkaloid
section_title: Naming
hierarchical_section_title: Alkaloid / Naming
caption_attribution_description: English: The beginning of the 1819 article by de:Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Meißner where he defines the term "Alkaloid".
context_page_description: Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids. In addition to carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, alkaloids may also contain oxygen, sulfur and, more rarely, other elements such as chlorine, bromine, and phosphorus.
  Alkaloids are produced by a large variety of organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals. They can be purified from crude extracts of these organisms by acid-base extraction, or solvent extractions followed by silica-gel column chromatography. Alkaloids have a wide range of pharmacological activities including antimalarial, antiasthma, anticancer, cholinomimetic, vasodilatory, antiarrhythmic, analgesic, antibacterial, and antihyperglycemic activities. Many have found use in traditional or modern medicine, or as starting points for drug discovery. Other alkaloids possess psychotropic and stimulant activities, and have been used in entheogenic rituals or as recreational drugs. Alkaloids can be toxic too.
context_section_description: The name "alkaloids" (German: Alkaloide) was introduced in 1819 by the German chemist Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Meißner, and is derived from late Latin root alkali (which, in turn, comes from the Arabic al-qalwī meaning 'ashes of plants') and the suffix -οειδής -('like'). However, the term came into wide use only after the publication of a review article, by Oscar Jacobsen in the chemical dictionary of Albert Ladenburg in the 1880s.
  There is no unique method for naming alkaloids. Many individual names are formed by adding the suffix "ine" to the species or genus name. For example, atropine is isolated from the plant Atropa belladonna; strychnine is obtained from the seed of the Strychnine tree  (Strychnos nux-vomica L.). Where several alkaloids are extracted from one plant their names are often distinguished by variations in the  suffix: "idine", "anine", "aline", "inine" etc. There are also at least 86 alkaloids whose names contain the root "vin" because they are extracted from vinca plants such as Vinca rosea (Catharanthus roseus); these are called vinca alkaloids.
caption: The article that introduced the concept of "alkaloid".
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