This bibliometric analysis is part of the global NewQis-project and should illuminate both toxic and historic issues of research on curare. The ISI Web of Science was searched for data covering to using a term which included as many original articles on curare as possible.
Results are illustrated utilizing modern density equalizing map projections DEMP or beam diagrams. Most publications were located in North America and Europe. The USA has the highest number of publications as well as the highest h-index. The number of publications overall rose until the late s and later decreased. Furthermore, sudden increases of research activity are ascribable to historic events, like the first use of curare as muscle relaxant during surgery.
This scientometric analysis of curare research reflects several tendencies as previously seen in other bibliometric investigations, i. Research on curare decreased however, due to the declining attention towards this muscle relaxant. This work exemplifies also how scientometric methods can be used to illuminate historic circumstances immediately stimulating scientific research.
Curare is used for centuries by humans, and its toxic patho-mechanism [1] has been meticulously examined. This insidious neurotoxin has killed many humans and animals over the centuries. The indigenes of America used it over centuries for hunting and produced this poison, by boiling diverse plants, e. Chondrodendron tomentosum, Menispermaceae or Strychnos, according to traditional recipes.
The resulting paste was applied to arrowheads. Prey animals, struck by the poisoned weapons, died within a few minutes. Hence, it was just a question of time, until the underlying molecular mechanism aroused interest in European scientists as well as physicians [2] — [5]. But how did curare find its way out of the jungle onto European laboratory benches? In the 15 th century — the era of the conquerors — Christopher Columbus and his crew on behalf of the Spanish crown set sail to search for a western route to India, crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Leaving the Canary Islands behind, they made landfall believing they found a seaway to East Asia. During the local expeditions, the crew came under fire from natives. Poisoned arrows hit two members of the crew. Both men quickly died in agony in spite of relatively small wounds. They discovered a brown paste on the arrowheads and assumed poison on the arrows, which hit their friends [3] , [4].
This was the time scientific research on curare started. Curare was prepared and distributed but still was a long process of experiments and failures until the mysteries of the poison out of the jungle of South America could be decoded. Walter Raleigh, Charles Marie de la Condamine and Claude Bernard became known for their investigations on curare and made eminent achievements on this scientific field and promoted the interest of anesthesiologists towards this toxin [2] , [3] , [5].
Especially Alexander von Humboldt played an important role in the history of curare. They were the first Europeans to be shown the tribal traditional production of curare. Humboldt accurately documented which instruments were necessary and how they were used, one of the best stories of medical history [7]. The two men trusted the experience and knowledge of the old Indian. He confirmed that neither the steam of hot curare preparations are toxic nor its ingestion. Humboldt decided to drink the potion and proved that only parenteral contact to curare is deadly [7].
In the 20 th century the molecular mechanism of curare as a competitive antagonist of nicotinergic neuromuscular synaptic junctions was finally elucidated. This non-depolarizing muscle relaxant, once in the circulation, quickly leads to paralysis including respiratory paralysis.
Prey animals could not run away once they were hit by an arrow, and died within a short period of time [8]. Curare wasn't used clinically for muscle relaxation until Although patients were anesthesized for surgery -the dentist William Morton successfully permormed the first general anesthesia on October 16 th [9] - the problem of muscle contractions was not solved.
Since curare could cause complete immobility of the patient and allowed the surgeon to operate under ideal conditions, it gained scientific popularity since the end of the 19 th century. The first clinical use of curare as muscle relaxant during an operation is reported on January 23 rd The anesthesiologist Harold Griffith injected a synthetic preparation of curare to a young man before appendectomy.
The era of muscle relaxants in surgery had started [10]. With the on-going rapid development of medical science new derivates could be synthesized with better pharmaceutical characteristics, so the original curare from Amazonia lost its relevance in modern medicine.
Still a lot of research was necessary to develop the modern drugs in current use. No scientometric analysis of the research on curare or its derivates exists. This study focuses on original articles of curare research since The results illustrate the development of scientific research activity of this neurotoxin over the decades; on the other hand we address the shift in research focus.
Classical bibliometric parameters are therefore used like the total number of published items for countries, authors, number of citations or the citation rate using novel visualizing methods like "density equalizing map projections". This work is part of the global NewQis-project [11] , testing methods towards their possible application for historical analyses. This scientometric analysis elucidates whether the success story of curare can be ascribed to single scientists like Alexander Humboldt alone or further factors being additionally accountable.
This analysis should also shed light on the research activity in this insidious but bygone tropical cause of death.
A qualitative analysis of the citation report function is also feasible. This strategy should focuse on curare; the chemical elements curium, "mercury" and transuranium elements were excluded.
In a second step the results were refined for the document type article excluding congress abstracts. The search was done on December 31 st , The collected bibliometric data was analyzed for the number of publications and citations as previously described [12]. For the geographical distribution the items "number of publication" as well as the "modified Hirsch-Index" h-index were calculated and the results illustrated by Density Equalizing Map Projections DEMPs , which were developed by Gastner and Newman [13].
The h-index was calculated from the number of publications and the citation rates. A country with an h-index of x has published x papers each being cited in other papers at least x times [14]. This index reflects both the number and the impact of publications making it particularly suitable as a bibliometric scale for the qualitative analysis of scientific research [15].
While based on conventional geographic maps, a DEMP displays countries or continent size proportional to a certain attribute, e. Using this procedure, complex data can be visualized in a very accessible and plausible way. Ultimately the diffusion-based DEMP is the representation of country sizes by a given factor as distorted geographical map [13] , [16].
Countries which more than five international collaborations were illustrated by a beam diagram, the width of the beams is proportional to the volume of cooperation. A journal analysis was performed similar to the author analysis. We identified the journals with the highest numbers of articles and citation rates and showed the number of citations per article for the top The citation rate was used as a qualitative marker comparable to the well known impact factor IF , which corresponds to a journal's citation rate of the last two years.
The original WoS content categories subject areas , which include articles regarding curare, were analyzed in decade periods to illustrate time shifts from to present. The shift of language use from up to now was illustrated analogously to the subject areas. Overall, 3, articles regarding curare are found in WoS. The development of the number of publications per year since is illustrated in Fig. From to the publication rate remains low at about 12 articles per year.
This value rises significantly in and peaks with 47 articles in coinciding with the clinical use of curare as muscle relaxant. Between and the publication rate decreases again to appr. Since it rises again with one peak in , and one in to Until curare articles were rarely cited.
Since then, citations increased constantly, with the first peak in citations. The number of citations per year reached its maximum in citations and decreased continuously afterwards.
The number of citations closely followed the number of publications. The number of publications for each country is illustrated in Fig. The USA has the highest scientific output worldwide with articles followed by the United Kingdom articles , Germany articles , Canada , France articles , the Netherlands articles and Japan articles.
The ranking of the number of publications using the h-index changes this order Fig. Whereas the USA is leading with an h-index of 62 followed by the UK 45 , Netherlands achieved an h-index of 34, Canada 32 and France 31 following closely. Overall, North America and Europe are the most prolific and the most influential countries in curare research. The percentage of articles originating from international collaborations of at least two countries increased continuously Fig.
The collaborations are visualized by a beam diagram in Fig. The USA 91 studies with international collaborations in general has the most collaborative articles overall, but the Netherlands 54 has more different collaboration partners. USA and Germany 45 share the strongest partnership with 18 articles.
Strongly internationally cooperating countries also are the United Kingdom 41 , Canada 24 and Sweden The 15 journals with the largest number of articles on curare and its derivatives are shown in Fig. The citation rate Fig. The content categories subject areas have connotatively changed over the decades Fig. The development of the article languages is illustrated analogously to the subject areas Fig. Until the dominating languages were French and German.
Afterwards English became the most relevant language for scientific research. This study evaluates and illustrates the scientific research of curare and its derivates from to Methods and techniques which have been developed for the NewQis-Project [11] also are tested for their suitability regarding historical examinations.
Some bibliometric parameters of curare research are identical to other topics [17] , [18] , i. Increasing publication output may be ascribed to modern technologies as the Internet, which provides additional scientific databases, publishing scientific results and accessing many different journals and publications has become much easier.
It also has to be noted that monetary incentives often support a high publication output. Consequently, the numbers of articles rises listed in the global databases. This analysis on curare exemplifies some additional features, which are exclusive for the research on curare.
For example, the first two peaks of publications per year Fig. The first peak around is three years after the first clinical use of a curare derivate as muscle-relaxant during an operation. The second specific rise in articles is appr. These events illustrate the reaction of medical research to new developments. In addition, the number of articles since decreased to 40 - 60 articles per year, a comparatively low level corresponding to the output of the s, and is a rare development in medical research, compared to other expanding medical fields e.
Small doses have been used to treat hypotension and irregular heartbeats. The African crested rat has been observed chewing on the roots and bark of the poison arrow tree. But rather than swallow the toxic mixture, this ingenious creature will smear it onto the spongey, absorbent hairs on its flank.
When threatened the rat will expose this area to a predator and entice it to take a bite. Even if the predator is lucky enough to survive the encounter, it will certainly think twice before taking on another crested rat. That was Jamie Durrani with the arrow poisons curare and ouabain. Get in touch with any comments — tweet chemistryworld or email chemistryworld rsc. A DNA researcher tells the story of how humans have shaped the evolution of living things on Earth.
Site powered by Webvision Cloud. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. Related audio. Book club — Deep Sniff by Adam Zmith. Book club — Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery. Curare and ouabain. Latest audio. Book club — Vampirology by Kathryn Harkup.
Load more audio. Related articles. Research First carbon-making microbes discovered TZ Mysterious black material produced by deep sea archaea and bacteria found to be carbon. Load more articles. No comments yet. You're not signed in. To link your comment to your profile, sign in now. Only registered users can comment on this article. Sign in Register. More Podcasts.
0コメント