Biologic poisons for pain

Pain therapies from natural sources date back thousands of years to the use of plant and animal extracts for a variety of painful conditions and injuries. We certainly are all familiar with modern uses of plant-derived analgesic compounds such as opium derivatives from papaverum somniferum and salicylates from willow bark (Salix species). Local anesthetics were isolated from coca leaves in the late 1800s. Sarapin, derived from carnivorous pitcher plants, has been injected for regional analgesia in human and veterinary medicine, but efficacy is controversial. Biologic organisms can play important roles in developing an understanding of pain mechanisms, either from isolation of compounds that are analgesic or of compounds that produce pain, hyperalgesia, and allodynia.