Pharmacotherapy of mental illness--a historical analysis

The history of pharmacotherapy of mental illness can be divided into three periods. Introduction of morphine, potassium bromide, chloral hydrate, hyoscine, paraldehyde, etc., during the second half of the 19th century (first period), led to the replacement of physical restraint by pharmacological means in behavior control. Introduction of nicotinic acid, penicillin, thiamine, etc., during the first half of the 20th century (second period), led to significant changes in the diagnostic distribution of psychiatric patients; psychoses due to cerebral pellagra, and dementia due to syphilitic general paralysis virtually disappeared from psychiatric hospitals, and the prevalence of dysmnesias markedly decreased. Treatment with therapeutically effective drugs of mania, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, Alzheimer's disease, etc., during the second half of the 20th century (third period), brought to attention the heterogeneity of the populations within the diagnostic categories of schizophrenia and depression. Introduction of the first set of psychotropics and the spectrophotofluorimeter during the 1950s triggered the development of neuropsychopharmacology. Introduction of genetic technology for the separation of receptor subtypes in the 1980s opened the path for the "tailoring" of psychotropic drugs by the dawn of the 21st century, to receptor affinities.