Imipramine
Regarded as the first antidepressant. It failed as a candidate drug for schizophrenia, and in 1957 the Swiss psychiatrist Roland Kuhn reported its effect on depression.
Kuhn gave a compound numbered G22355, similar in structure to chlorpromazine, to patients with schizophrenia. It did not help their hallucinations or delusions, but he noticed that low mood lifted in some patients, and in 1957 he reported its use in about a hundred patients with depression[1]. The next year he wrote that it worked best in depression that arises without a clear cause[2].
In a British trial of 1965, the share of patients who reached discharge within six months on their allotted treatment alone was 34 of 63 on imipramine and 22 of 61 on placebo. In the same trial another antidepressant, phenelzine, did no better than placebo[3].
Related terms
- ChlorpromazineA drug that eases the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenia. Synthesised in France in 1951 and tried as an aid to anaesthesia, it entered psychiatry in 1952.
- PlaceboA tablet or similar that looks like the real drug but contains no active ingredient. Comparing a drug against it shows whether the drug really works.
Sources
- W. A. Brown, M. Rosdolsky, “The Clinical Discovery of Imipramine,” American Journal of Psychiatry 172(5), 426–429 (2015).
- R. Kuhn, “The Treatment of Depressive States with G 22355 (Imipramine Hydrochloride),” American Journal of Psychiatry 115(5), 459–464 (1958).
- Clinical Psychiatry Committee, “Clinical Trial of the Treatment of Depressive Illness: Report to the Medical Research Council,” British Medical Journal 1(5439), 881–886 (1965).