The bean was studied throughout the 1860s by a few different Edinburgh scientists, including Douglas Argyll Robertson who wrote a paper on the use of Calabar bean extract on the eye and was the first to use it medicinally, and Thomas Richard Fraser, who researched how to best extract the active principle, which was later determined to be physostigmine. Fraser also studied the antagonism between physostigmine and atropine extremely rigorously, at a time when the concept of antagonism had little if any experimental support. Frasers research is still the basis of todays knowledge about the interactions between atropine and physostigmine at many different and specific doses. Physostigmines first use as a treatment for glaucoma was by Ludwig Laqueur in 1876. Laqueur himself had glaucoma so, like Christison, he experimented on himself, although Laqueur was much more scientific and methodical in his self-treatment. In the 1920s, Otto Loewi determined the biomechanical mechanism for the effects of physostigmine on the body. Loewi was studying how actions that we now consider to be controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system, were directed by chemicals. During his studies, Loewi discovered acetylcholine and that physostigmine acted by preventing acetylcholine inhibition. In 1936, Loewi was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on discovering acetylcholine and biological chemical transmitters. More important discoveries surrounding physostigmine were made at the University of Edinburgh in 1925. Edgar Stedman and George Barger determined the structure of physostigmine using a method called chemical degradation. In 1935 Percy Lavon Julian was later the first to synthesize physostigmine.
Methylscopolamine or methscopolamine, usually provided as the bromide or nitrate salt, is an oral medication used along with other medications to treat peptic ulcers by reducing stomach acid secretion. Proton pump inhibitors and antihistamine medications have made this use obsolete. It can also be used for stomach or intestinal spasms, to reduce salivation, and to treat motion sickness. Methscopolamine is also commonly used as a drying agent, to dry up post-nasal drip, in cold, irritable bowel syndrome and allergy medicationsMethscopolamine, a methylated derivative of scopolamine, is a muscarinic antagonist structurally similar to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Its mechanism of action involves blocking the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. It was patented in 1902 and approved for medical use in 1947. Methscopolamine is an FDA-approved analog to hyoscine butylbromide. Brand names
Brand names include Extendryl, AlleRx, Rescon, Pamine. == References ==