Recent advances in chromatography and in microspectrometric methods of structure analysis coupled with an increased reliance upon bioassay-directed fractionation present unusual opportunities for the progress today. This, combined with a renewed enthusiasm for novel structures as potential pharmacodynamic agents, provided the inspiration for review on new developments in natural products of medicinal interest. Because bioactive natural products have been elaborated evolutionarily for other purposes, the average natural product is unlikely to be a clinically useful drug in its own right but rather serves as a chemical clue. This natural product, using the modern principles of drug design and lead refinement, can lead to exciting new series for study and clinical development. Natural products are the end result of enzymatic manipulation from normal primary metabolic pools and, as such, are inherently more likely to interact successfully with other biopolyrners, such as receptors, than any of the compounds produced as the result of purely chemical imagination. As for example, given the chronic problem, many nations face alcohol abuse. The recent problems associated with the use of disulfurarn, the finding that coprine isolated from the inky cap mushroom Coprinus atramentarius, also interferes with alcohol dehydrogenase mediated alcohol metabolism that has attracted considerable interest. Antibacterial compounds are widely distributed in the plant kingdom. Unfortunately, the agents are rarely evaluated in vivo. The active agents may often be new to the literature, but usually belongs to the series structurally familiar to natural products chemists. New products like sclerosporin and trigonelline show promises of opening new areas of investigation in the area of medicinal interest.