text: Pancuronium remains one of the few muscle relaxants logically and rationally designed from structure-action / effects relationship data. A steroid skeleton was chosen because of its appropriate size and rigidness. Acetylcholine moieties were inserted to increase receptor affinity. Although having many unwanted side-effects, a slow onset of action and recovery rate it was a big success and at the time the most potent neuromuscular drug available. Pancuronium and some other neuromuscular blocking agents block M2-receptors and therefore affect the vagus nerve, leading to hypotension and tachycardia. This muscarinic blocking effect is related to the acetylcholine moiety on the A ring on pancuronium. Making the N atom on the A ring tertiary, the ring loses its acetylcholine moiety, and the resulting compound, vecuronium, has nearly 100 times less affinity to muscarin receptors while maintaining its nicotinic affinity and a similar duration of action. Vecuronium is, therefore, free from cardiovascular effects. The D ring shows excellent properties validating Beers and Reich's rule with great precision. As a result, vecuronium has the greatest potency and specificity of all mono-quaternary compounds.