Indications for the use of drugs in the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

DURING the past decade the drug treatment of psychiatric illness has advanced with remarkable rapidity. The principal drugs concerned are those with predominant actions on higher mental and neurological functions and collectively referred to as psychotropic drugs. The main drugs used in practice can be classified into (i) Anti-psychotic drugs (Neuroleptics). (2) Anti-depression drugs. (3) Anti-anxiety drugs. The harbingers of the modern era of pharmacotherapy in psychiatry were reserpine and chlorpromazine. Reserpine was rediscovered after use by Indian physicians many hundreds of years ago and chlorpromazine was first used by Laborit in France to facilitate low temperature surgery because of its suppressive action on the central and peripheral parts of both divisions of the autonomic nervous system. Later, chlorpromazine was used by Deniker, Delay and other members of the, French school of psychiatry for treating psychiatric illnesses.