114 



specific affinities, in the animal body they are capable of produc- 

 ing effects at a lower concentration, being accumulated by their 

 target. 



CHLORPROMA2INE 



The drug chlorpromazine has a most colorful, unique action in 

 the animal body. It has come into the limelight lately as one of 

 the nuin drugs in the treatment of schizophrenia. Needless to say, 



I 



CHo 



I 

 CH2 



I 

 CH2 



I 

 N(CH3)2 



Fig. 26. Chlorpromazine. 



if the drug influences schizophrenia, then it must influence some 

 process involved in the pathogenesis of this disease and if it does 

 act by interfering with E* then, evidently, E* must be involved in 

 one way or another, in schizophrenia. So our problem here is to 

 find out whether chlorpromazine does act on £*, whether the con- 

 centrations in which it produces changes in E* in vitro are com- 

 parable to the concentrations in which it exerts a drug action in 

 vivo. Chlorpromazine (Fig. 26) is a phenothiazine and a member 

 of this group has occupied us earlier (pyrrolazote). According to 

 what has been said before, we could expect that in chlorpromazine 

 the phenothiazine ring acts on E* while the side chain tunes the 

 specific biological afl!inities. 



As is known from the rapidly growing literature on chlorproma- 

 zine, this drug produces in the animal symptoms akin to hiberna- 

 tion. In order to be able to compare this action with actions on £* 

 in vitro the basal metabolic rate was measured in mice by the 

 author and S. L. Baird. The results, which have no pretense of 



