Antispasmodic

antispasmodic

[¦an·tē‚spaz′mäd·ik]

(pharmacology)

An agent, such as benzyl benzoate, that relieves convulsions and the pain of muscular spasms.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Antispasmodic

 

one of a group of pharmacological substances with various chemical structures that induce the relaxation of the smooth muscles of, for example, the blood vessels, bronchi, and gastrointestinal, biliary, and urinary tracts.

Antispasmodics may be, according to their mechanism of action, neurotropic or musculotropic. Neurotropic agents include cholinolytics, for example, such m-cholinolytics as atropine, spasmolytin, thiphen, aprophen, and diprophen. Conventionally, they also include sympathomimetics (Adrenalin, ephedrine, Is-adrine [Aleudrin]), which relax the smooth muscles of the bronchi, intestines, and other organs by exciting sympathetic nerves. Musculotropic antispasmodics, including papaverine and drotav-erinum, directly act on the smooth muscles.

Antispasmodics are used to treat many diseases accompanied by the intensified contraction of the smooth muscles, including asthma, renal colic, and spasms of the cerebral blood vessels.

REFERENCES

Kuznetsov, S. G., and S. N. Golikov. Sinteticheskie alropinopodobnye veshchestva. Leningrad, 1962. (Bibliography.)
Wesselius de Casparis, A. “Neurotropic Versus Musculotropic Antispasmodics.” Medicamundi, 1962, vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 92–98. (Bibliography.)

V. V. ZAKUSOV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.