Chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic drug belonging to the phenothiazine class and - as such - has neuroleptic activity, that is, it is able to depress the central nervous system.
Chlorpromazine is also known as thorazine.
Chlorpromazine - Chemical Structure
It was discovered by the chemist Paul Charpentier in 1950, in an attempt to synthesize analogues of promethazine, a phenothiazine with both neuroleptic and antihistamine activity.
Later, the French surgeon Laborit and his collaborators discovered the ability of this drug to enhance the effects of anesthesia. They noted that chlorpromazine itself did not produce loss of consciousness, but favored a tendency to sleep and a marked disinterest in the "surrounding environment.
In 1952 the psychiatrists Delay and Deniker hypothesized that chlorpromazine was not only an agent capable of symptomatically resolving agitation and anxiety, but that it could also have a therapeutic effect in the treatment of psychosis.
