Antidepressants are medications which relieve or prevent depression. Before antidepressant’s discovery it were extensively used substances with stimulating effect. They were able to cause euphoria (opium and other opiates, caffeine, ginseng). To reduce anxiety and excitability it was used valerian, as well as bromine salt. The real revolution in psychopharmacology was discovery of antidepressants in the beginning of the 50s. Since then, already half a century, these medications are the main method with a fight with depression. In spite of the fact that the era of antidepressants has started recently, it already has its own “creation myths”.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, researchers have experimented with different substances in order to synthesize the drug which relieves depression symptoms. However all experiments were failed. The first antidepressant was «discovered» in 1957 by a chance, when doctors payed attention to iproniazid, that was used by multimodality therapy of tuberculosis. Except of the main medication’s effect, it was observed and a side effect, which was showed in unusual high spirits by tuberculosis patients. A short time later this medication was used for relief of depression symptoms, especially as the tuberculosis remedy it did not justify itself.
According to the other version, the action of the medication was discovered by Nathan Kline. Moreover his disclosure was also more than accidental – with a help of drug he tried to prove the theory about the location of «ego». During psychoanalytical session Kline has mentioned that some patients have not got former problems any more. Iproniazid was offered for sale, but soon it was turned that it increases the risk of jaundice, so the sale of medications was discontinued.
At the same time in Germany Ronald Kun discovered imipramine. Kun gave his patients different medications in order to build the global classification of mental diseases. The German psychiatrists of that time were completely obsessed with this classification. As in previous cases, medication was «discovered» when patients were elated. In contrast to iproniazid, imipramine still is in the list of official medications of WHO and up to Prozac it was the best selling antidepressant.
When the first antidepressants were discovered, no one could have imagined that just in a few decades, treatment with antidepressants would almost force out other types of depression treatment. According to poll, that took place at the end of the XXth century in the USA, the biggest discovery of the last century will be not the theory of relativity, and not the Internet, but a small capsule of Prozac.
Tags: antidepressant, anxiety, depression symptoms, euphoria, imipramine, iproniazid, Prozac