Acetylcholine--from Vagusstoff to cerebral neurotransmitter.
This paper is concerned with some of the events in physiology that followed Otto Loewi's description of a substance that he named "Vagusstoff"; events that led eventually to the establishment of acetylcholine as a transmitter substance in the nervous system. Much of the work achieving this recognition of acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter took place in the middle third of the twentieth century; a period that witnessed the dislocation of many people as a result of National Socialist policies in Germany, that country's expansionist conquests, and the Second World War. A few of the people who were obliged to emigrate from Europe played prominent roles in these discoveries. This paper describes some of their achievements and, in a way, pays tribute to them.
Sourkes
Theodore L
TL
Department of Psychiatry, Biochemistry, and Pharmacology and Therapeutics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. theodore.sourkes@mcgill.ca
D000109:Acetylcholine / Q000266:history* / Q000502:physiology; D005858:Germany; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009482:Neurophysiology / Q000266:history*; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents / Q000266:history* / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology; D014481:United States
D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents; D000109:Acetylcholine