Some features of modern pharmacology

Abstract

INTRODUCTION I.P. Pavlov indicated in the last century that the action of many pharmacological substances begins after their contact with the endings of afferent nerves. Clark was ~he first to carry out quantitative calculations of the action of a phgrmacological substance on a ce~l; he showed that oubain occupies only 3% of frogcardiac cells during the period of maximum effect, l.e° during cardiac arrest. Later, Ari~ns introduced the concepts of affinity of a pharmacological substance for cellular receptors and of its efficiency, or intrinsic activits, independent of the affinity, proportional to the number of receptors occupied by the drug. A number of authors have demonstrated lately the presence, in the structures of the central nervous system~ of receptors specific for some neurotropic drugs, opiate anal~esics included. Pert and Snyder ((973) have shown in experiments on homogenates of the J