Colchicine - History

History

The plant source of colchicine, the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale), was described for treatment of rheumatism and swelling in the Ebers Papyrus (ca. 1500 B.C.), an Egyptian medical papyrus. Use of the bulb-like corms of Colchicum to treat gout probably dates to ca. 550 A.D., as the "hermodactyl" recommended by Alexander of Tralles. Colchicum extract was first described as a treatment for gout in De Materia Medica by Pedanius Dioscorides, in the first century CE. Colchicum corms were used by the Persian physician ibn Sina (Avicenna) and other Islamic physicians, were recommended by Ambroise Pare in the sixteenth century, and appeared in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1618. Colchicum plants were brought to America by Benjamin Franklin, who suffered from gout himself and had written humorous doggerel about the disease during his stint as Envoy to France.

Colchicine was first isolated in 1820 by the French chemists P.S. Pelletier and J.B.Caventou . In 1833, P.L. Geiger purified an active ingredient, which he named colchicine. The determination of colchicine's structure required decades, although in 1945 Michael Dewar made an important contribution when he suggested that, among the molecule's three rings, two were 7-member rings. Its pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory effects for gout were linked to its ability to bind with tubulin.