Journal Article

The decline in the clinical relevance of pilocarpine and physostigmine monitored in pharmacology textbooks from 1878 to 2023: nine take-home messages for future (pharmacology) textbook authors

Ludwig, Laureen, Seifert, Roland

2025

Overview

In a recent study, using hydrogen cyanide as paradigm, we have shown that pharmacological knowledge evolves non-linearly ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38900251/ ). The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in the presentation of the drugs pilocarpine and physostigmine in textbooks from 1878 to 2023. The categories of structure, molecular mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, effects, indications, adverse drug reactions, interactions, and contraindications were evaluated. The pharmacological knowledge on the molecular mechanism, chemical structure, and pharmacokinetics of pilocarpine and physostigmine changed the most during the period of 150 years. Until 1944, textbooks did not mention a molecular mechanism of action of pilocarpine and from 1951 onwards they described the activation of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors as the molecular basis of pilocarpine’s effect. Until 1944, most textbooks on physostigmine also did not mention the molecular mechanism of action. From 1951 onwards, the reversible inhibition of acetylcholinesterase is mentioned as the mechanism of action of physostigmine. In contrast, in the categories effects , indications , adverse drug reactions , interactions , and contraindications , the detected changes in the pharmacological knowledge presented were comparatively smaller. Older pharmacology textbooks were better than newer ones at discussing changes in knowledge and scientific errors. We noted substantial differences in the presentation of pilocarpine and physostigmine among German and US pharmacology textbooks. We show a decline of the clinical relevance of both drugs and their presentation in pharmacological textbooks with physostigmine being virtually irrelevant. But modern textbooks still discuss physostigmine substantially, fitting to studies on the obsolete drug reserpine ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38103060/ ). Thus, textbooks often far lag clinical practice. Google Scholar conveys the incorrect impression that physostigmine is clinically more relevant than it is. An exponential decline in prescription numbers is a robust indicator of clinical obsolescence. From our study, we extract nine easily implementable take-home messages for future (pharmacology) textbook authors to ensure that this traditional teaching format will prevail against the competition of allegedly more “modern” teaching media.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Acetylcholine receptors (muscarinic) / Acetylcholinesterase / Animals / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biomedicine / Cholinesterase Inhibitors - adverse effects / Cholinesterase Inhibitors - pharmacology / Clinical Relevance / Contraindications / History, 19th Century / History, 20th Century / History, 21st Century / Humans / Hydrogen cyanide / Molecular modelling / Muscarinic Agonists - adverse effects / Muscarinic Agonists - pharmacology / Neurosciences / Pharmacokinetics / Pharmacology / Pharmacology - education / Pharmacology - history / Pharmacology - trends / Pharmacology/Toxicology / Physostigmine / Physostigmine - adverse effects / Physostigmine - pharmacology / Physostigmine - therapeutic use / Pilocarpine / Pilocarpine - adverse effects / Pilocarpine - pharmacology / Pilocarpine - therapeutic use / Reserpine / Side effects / Textbooks / Textbooks as Topic - history