OILMAN: EFFECTS OF DRV OS ON NERVE ACTIVITY 551 



deeply into the action of drugs such as the local anesthetics on a cellular 

 level, information may be gained on the mechanism of the propagation 

 of the nerve impulse? 



The full realization of the contributions that drugs can make to the 

 elucidation of fundamental physiological mechanisms, can only result 

 from the cooperative research efforts of the pharmacologist and those 

 investigators who are focusing their interests more intensively on a 

 specific field. This is readily appreciated, in so far as the full exploita- 

 tion of the therapeutic applications of a drug is concerned. The 

 pharmacologist, who, in the course of an investigation on central de- 

 pressants, finds a compound with new and significant anti-convulsive 

 properties, will invariably refer the compound to a clinical neurologist, 

 if he deems it worthy of consideration as an anti-epileptic. During 

 the course of chemical warfare research, compounds were studied 

 which, to the pharmacologist, suggested themselves as potential thera- 

 peutic agents in the treatment of such unrelated conditions as Hodg- 

 kin's disease, mercury poisoning, Myasthenia gravis, and glaucoma. 

 In every instance, the prediction of therapeutic worth which was based 

 upon laboratory analyses proved correct, but it was only through the 

 efforts of clinicians, highly specialized in their particular field, that the 

 full appreciation of the therapeutic value of these particular agents 

 was realized. 



Drugs are constantly following the path from laboratory to clinic, 

 and many of the outstanding medical accomplishments of the past 

 decade are the result of this cooperative effort. However, drugs can 

 only make their full contribution to the science of medicine when they 

 also follow another, more fundamental, and possibly more important 

 path : namely, from the laboratory of the pharmacologist to the labora- 

 tories of investigators working on those physiological problems which 

 attempt to define biological processes in their most fundamental terms. 

 That drugs are not being fully exploited, in this respect, is a regrettable 

 fact. Even in the field of neurophysiology, where drugs have proveH 

 such valuable research tools, a full realization of their potential contri- 

 butions has not been reached. The tendency, rather, has been to accept 

 drugs with known actions and to employ them for these actions, rather 

 than to investigate unknown mechanisms of drug action as probes into 

 physiological processes. This occurs despite the fact that acetylcholine 

 and physostigmine, two drugs which are better understood than any 

 other compounds affecting nerve action, have paved the way toward 

 revolutionary concepts in an understanding of synaptic transmission. 



New agents affecting the nervous system are constantly being de- 



