Psychopharmacology (1964)

EDMUNDO FISCHER, GUSTAVO F. POCH, RONALDO UCHA UDABE:
PSICOFARMACOLOGIA
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

Buenos Aires: Lopez Libreros. 1964 (454 pages).

Reviewed by Carlos Morra

CONTENT: This book has two parts comprising 19 chapters. It opens with Henri Baruk’s Preface, and then the authors’ Introduction. Part One, “Tranquilizers” contains three sections. In the first (chapters one to five) tranquilizers are separated on the basis of their chemical structure into “phenothiazines”, “thioxanthenes”, “butyrophenones”, “reserpine-like substances” and “benzoqiuinolizines”, and in the second (chapters six to eight), they are separated on the basis of their pharmacological action into “anticholinrergics”, “antihistaminics” and “drugs without known  neurohumoral effects”. The third section of Part One, “Interneuronblockers” covers “substituted diols” (chapter nine), “chlormezanone” and “mefenoxalone” (chapter ten), and “benzodiazepines” (chapter eleven).

Part Two, “Stimulants”, also has three sections. The first (chapters twelve and thirteen) deals with “adrenergic” and “cholinergic (anticholinergic)” “psychoanaleptic drugs”; the second (chapters fourteen and fifteen) with “monoamine oxidase inhibitors” and “dibenzazepine thymoanaleptics”; and the third, “psychotoxic substances”, (chapters sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen) covers “phenylethylamine derivatives”, “simple indolethylamines”,   “cyclic and condensed indolethylamines”, and “piperidyl benzylate”.

REVIEWER’S COMMENT: In this volume the status of psychotropic drugs in the mid-1960s is reviewed.  Authors noted that lysergic acid diethylamide was useful for studying and treating psychopathology. Special attention was paid to findings indicating psychotoxic methylated indolethylamine derivatives in schizophrenic urine.

Carlos Morra
January 8, 2015