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A Short History of the Drug Receptor ConceptReceptors and Scientific Pharmacology I: Critics of the Receptor Idea and Alternative Theories of Drug Action, c. 1905–35

A Short History of the Drug Receptor Concept: Receptors and Scientific Pharmacology I: Critics of... [By 1905 the receptor concepts of both John Newport Langley and Paul Ehrlich were fully developed, and in 1907 the two researchers shook hands on the special case of drug-binding receptors. Despite early resistance to certain aspects of their theories, Langley and Ehrlich were successful in promoting and publicizing their concepts within the scientific communities of physiology, immunology and bacteriology, and the new theories of drug-binding receptors were at least being considered by representatives of pharmacology. In the following two chapters we will concentrate on this last medical field. These chapters will describe and analyse the response of pharmacologists to the receptor concept between 1905 and 1935, a period that was characterized by discussions on the direct effect of drugs on cells. These debates were fuelled to a large extent by the receptor concept. Most pharmacologists were critical and a number of alternative theories emerged and were discussed. Within this period of transition, there was a break around 1930, when the Edinburgh pharmacologist Alfred Joseph Clark (1885–1941) revived the interpretations developed by Langley and Ehrlich and presented the receptor concept on the basis of a new approach (see Chapter 5 below).] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Short History of the Drug Receptor ConceptReceptors and Scientific Pharmacology I: Critics of the Receptor Idea and Alternative Theories of Drug Action, c. 1905–35

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2009
ISBN
978-1-349-36377-3
Pages
64 –92
DOI
10.1057/9780230583740_4
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[By 1905 the receptor concepts of both John Newport Langley and Paul Ehrlich were fully developed, and in 1907 the two researchers shook hands on the special case of drug-binding receptors. Despite early resistance to certain aspects of their theories, Langley and Ehrlich were successful in promoting and publicizing their concepts within the scientific communities of physiology, immunology and bacteriology, and the new theories of drug-binding receptors were at least being considered by representatives of pharmacology. In the following two chapters we will concentrate on this last medical field. These chapters will describe and analyse the response of pharmacologists to the receptor concept between 1905 and 1935, a period that was characterized by discussions on the direct effect of drugs on cells. These debates were fuelled to a large extent by the receptor concept. Most pharmacologists were critical and a number of alternative theories emerged and were discussed. Within this period of transition, there was a break around 1930, when the Edinburgh pharmacologist Alfred Joseph Clark (1885–1941) revived the interpretations developed by Langley and Ehrlich and presented the receptor concept on the basis of a new approach (see Chapter 5 below).]

Published: Sep 25, 2015

Keywords: Drug Action; Alternative Theory; Short History; Drug Binding; Chemical Theory

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