Beans, roots, and leaves: a history of the chemical therapy of Parkinsonism
Publisher: Tectum Verlag
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Marburg (Germany)
Language: eng
Number of pages: 902
ISBN-13: 9783828884960
Subjects: History of medicine; History of neuroscience; Parkinsonism
Genres: Non-fiction, medical
First sentence: Parkinson indicated in the pamphlet on the disorder named for him that he was by no means describing a new disease, but rather one which had until his time been neglected.
Description: Parkinsonism of various types has long been a debilitating and cruel affliction for significant numbers of people, and even today the cure remains elusive. The present volume explores the colorful and sometimes alarming history of the attempts to provide at least some relief from the symptoms of this disorder, commencing with interesting reports from ancient India and medieval Europe and continuing until the present time. Especial attention is devoted to L-DOPA therapy, still the leading pharmacological approach to the disorder more than forty years after its first application, and its place in the development of neurochemistry. But the employment of solanaceous plant alkaloid-based therapies, which dominated antiparkinsonian therapy until the mid-20th century, and the broad range of other approaches which found varying degrees of popularity, including those stimulated by the encephalitis epidemic which appeared in Europe during the First World War, are also discussed. The author concludes that antiparkinsonian therapy was never 'irrational', but was rather always determined by prevailing medical, pharmacological and scientific paradigms, so that its history is inextricably linked with experimental and clinical developments in these fields.
Table of contents: label: I
title: Parkinsonism before Parkinson
pagenum: 1; label: 1
title: THE ALKALOID THERAPIES
pagenum: 25; label: II
title: Therapy of parkinsonism in the first half of the nineteenth century
pagenum: 27; label: III
title: The solanaceous alkaloids
pagenum: 35; label: IV
title: Alkaloids in the therapy of parkinsonism: from Charcot to the outbreak of encephalitis epidemica
pagenum: 63; label: V
title: Encephalitis lethargica: new strategies in the therapy of parkinsonism
pagenum: 91; label: VI
title: The 1930s and 1940s: the dominance of atropine and belladonna
pagenum: 155; label: 2
title: THE SYNTHETIC ANTIPARKINSONIAN PREPARATIONS
pagenum: 215; label: VII
title: The 1950s: the synthetic anticholinergic and antihistaminergic preparations
pagenum: 217; label: VIII
title: Assessment of the pharmacological therapy of parkinsonism
pagenum: 275; label: IX
title: Why was the anticholinergic therapy of parkinsonism successful?
pagenum: 305; label: 3
title: DOPAMINE
pagenum: 331; label: X
title: The dopamine and L-DOPA story
pagenum: 333; label: XI
title: The first DOPA trials in the clinic: Frankfurt and Osaka
pagenum: 389; label: XII
title: Vienna tales: discovery of the dopamine deficit and introduction of L-DOPA therapy
pagenum: 405; label: XIII
title: Montréal and Göteborg: the dopamine deficit, L-DOPA therapy and the nigrostriatal pathway
pagenum: 437; label: XIV
title: The “lean years”: L-DOPA therapy 1961–1967
pagenum: 463; label: XV
title: The second coming: oral L-DOPA therapy
pagenum: 479; label: XVI
title: Adjuncts and alternatives: the extension of dopamine-based therapy
pagenum: 547; label: XVII
title: Concluding remarks: from alkaloids to neurochemistry
pagenum: 611; title: Notes
pagenum: 621; title: Literature
pagenum: 733; title: Indices
pagenum: 865