ABSTRACT
When in 1947 Proskurnina and Yakovleva isolated a novel alkaloid, which they named galanthamine, from Galanthus woronowii (Caucasian snowdrop), they could not have foreseen the relevance of their findings for the pharmaceutical industry. Success in the treatment of poliomyelitis with galanthamine was soon reported, and the alkaloid became a routine part of the Soviet stock of medicines. As early as 1960, it was reported that galanthamine was an inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase, similar to the natural product physostigmine and the synthetic product neostigmine (Schulz, 1960).
