Reserpine, the purified
alkaloid of Rauwolfia serpentina, was the first potent
drug widely used in the long-term treatment of
hypertension. Rauwolfia serpentina is a tropical woody plant of the Apocyanaceae family ingenious to Asia, South America and Africa. Extracts of its different parts and of plants resembling to rauwolfia were used in
Hindu medicine for
snakebite,
insomnia, insanity and many other diseases and complaints. In Europe, Georg Eberhard Rumpf first reported about rauwolfia in his Herbarium amboinense, 1755. The first modern paper about therapeutic applications of the whole root of rauwolfia was published in 1931 in the Indian Medical Journal by Sen and Bose, and many papers dealing with botanics, chemistry and pharmacology then appeared in Indian and European periodics. In 1949, Vakil published the first report of the
antihypertensive effect of rauwolfia in the British Heart Journal. In the Ciba laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, Mueller, Schlittler and Bein analysed various
rauwolfia alkaloids and published in 1952 the first complete report about their chemistry and pharmacology. In the same year,
reserpine was introduced under the name
Serpasil in the treatment of
hypertension,
tachycardia and thyreotoxicosis. The combination of
reserpine,
dihydroergocristine and a
diuretic is still on the market (Brinerdin,
Crystepin). In psychiatry,
reserpine was prescribed as a tranqulizing agent until modem synthetic
antidepressant and
antipsychotic drugs were introduced. The author also briefly summarizes the chemistry, pharmacology and clinical use of
reserpine.