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From: throop@cs.utexas.edu (David Throop)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.chem,sci.med,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Forgotten Entities: Do You Remember Any?
Message-ID: <995@ai.cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 31 Oct 90 18:34:06 GMT
References: <cares?> <Fooey!> <1990Oct31.033830.12198@ariel.unm.edu>
Followup-To: sci.physics
Organization: Dept of Computer Sciences, UTexas, Austin
Lines: 30

Pink Adreniline. (it was also called adrenechrome and something else,
too...)

In the '50's it was believed that schizophrenia was caused by a
metabolic error - that some failed metabolic pathway in the brain
caused some toxin to accumulate, and that toxin caused the
schizophrenia.  The putative toxin was named, and there was much
searching for it.  One of the candidates was "Pink Adreniline."

It had been reported that when adreniline solutions were stored too
long, they turned pink, and that when such tainted solutions were
injected, they induced a temporary schizophrenic state.  Building on
this observation, it was proposed that schizophrenia was caused by
this decomposition product accumulating in the brain.  

LSD was reputed to be an analog of this compound - and psychiatrists
ingested LSD in order to better understand the experience of their
schizophrenic patients.  The compounds we now call "hallucinogens"
were called "psychomimetics."

Well, it didn't pan out.  They never found "pink adreniline," the
intoxication induced by LSD and other hallucinogens was shown to be
distinct from schizophrenia, and (eventually) the neuron growth
patterns in schizophrenics were shown to be abnormal.

This is all from memory, so I'm asking for help.  It seems to me that
there was a name for the putative toxic metabolite *before* the "pink
adreniline" was proposed.  Anybody remember?

David Throop