The Importance of Academician N. P. Kravkov’s Studies of the Relationship Between Drug Action and Chemical Structure (On The 150TH Birthday of Academician N. P. Kravkov)

Academician N. P. Kravkov (1865 – 1924), the founder of Russian pharmacology, was the first scientist in Russia who studied the problem of how the action of drugs depends on their chemical structure. Using the method of isolated organs of animals, he established a number of correlations between the variation of pharmacological effects such as the strength and character of action and toxicity in series of hypnotics, narcotic analgesics, cardiac glycosides, and alcohols as their chemical structure was made more complex by adding various radicals or by increasing the number of carbon atoms. At present, N. P. Kravkov’s works in this direction are still used as the theoretical basis for developing new drugs.