Alkaloid - Role In The Plant, Role In Animals, Medical Use, Alkaloids For Pain And Pleasure

Alkaloid - Role In The Plant

Alkaloid - Role In Animals

Alkaloid - Medical Use

A number of alkaloids are used as drugs. Among the oldest and best known of these is quinine, derived from the bark of the tropical cinchona tree. Indians of South America have long used cinchona bark to reduce fever, much as willow bark was used in Europe as a source of aspirin. In the 1600s Europeans discovered that the bark could actually cure malaria—one of the most debilitating and fat…

Alkaloid - Alkaloids For Pain And Pleasure

Many medically useful alkaloids act by way of the peripheral nervous system; others work directly on the brain. Prominent among the latter are the pain relievers morphine and codeine, derived from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). Morphine is the stronger of the two, but codeine is often prescribed for moderate pain. Codeine is also an effective cough suppressant; for years it was a standard c…

Alkaloid - Addiction

Addiction was originally defined by the appearance of physical symptoms—such as sweating, sniffling, and trembling—when a drug was withdrawn from an addicted person or animal. It was also thought that addiction was accompanied by adaptation, in which more and more of the drug is required to produce the same effect. So long as the focus was on opium-derived drugs such as morphine and …

Alkaloid - Poisonous Alkaloids

Nearly all of the alkaloids mentioned so far are poisonous in large amounts. Some alkaloids, however, are almost solely known as poisons. One of these is strychnine, derived from the small Hawaiian tree Strychnos nux-vomica. Symptoms of strychnine poisoning begin with feelings of restlessness and anxiety, proceeding to muscle twitching and exaggerated reflexes. In severe poisoning, a loud sound ca…