Rauvolfia or rauwolfia (Rauwolfia serpentina)
APOCYNACEAE, Dogbane Family
Rauvolfia (Rauwolfia serpentina) is a small woody perennial from Indian and the East Indies. Roots of this plant yield the alkaloid reserpine. This was the first major tranquilizer, especially for the treatment of paranoia and schizophrenia, as well as a substance that lowers blood pressure and controls hypertension. Interestingly, rauvolfia was long used in India for treating mental illness and snake bites, known to medicine men and peasants as the "insanity herb," snakeroot, and chandra (= moon; moon disease or lunacy). The alkaloid is effective for snake bites and scorpion stings.
Although this plant was well known in India, westerners paid no attention to it until an Indian physician wrote an article on rauvolfia in 1943. Because of the drug's noted sedative effects, it was used to treat over a million Indians in the 1940s for high blood pressure. After a U.S. physician named Wilkins demonstrated the positive effects of reserpine (1952), the plant made front page news. This drug rapidly replaced electric shock and lobotomy as treatments for certain types of mental illness. Moreover, knowledge about the chemistry of this natural plant stimulated the synthesis of other similar alkaloids that are now used as major tranquilizers.
Many current prescriptions include reserpine or reserpine derivatives, the source of which is India, where more than 90% of the natural rauvolfia is still cultivated.