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Apomorphine for Parkinson’s Disease

Reta Lila Weston Institute for Neurological Studies, UCL, Windeyer Medical Institute, 46 Cleveland St, London, UK; E-mail: a.lees{at}ion.ucl.ac.uk

EXTRACT

A pomorphine was first used to treat behavioural vices in domesticated farm animals in the nineteenth century and is still used in veterinary medicine. It has had a chequered history in medical therapeutics, being successfully recommended as an emetic, a sedative, a treatment for narcotic and alcohol dependence and most recently for sexual dysfunction and impotence. It was first proposed as a treatment for movement disorders 150 years ago, but this indication was not pursued until the 1950s when Schwab in Boston confirmed its potential (Schwab et al. 1951). Following his demonstration that large doses of dopa improved Parkinson’s disease, George Cotzias looked for other dopamine analogues that might have complementary effects and carried out a series of scrupulous and fascinating experiments with apomorphine (Cotzias et al. 1970). These indicated that the effects of the drug, when administered by subcutaneous injection, were potent but short-lived, and that vomiting and postural ...

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