Antimalarial drugs, classification

About 6000 chemical entities can be used, in various pharmaceutical formulations, to treat human or animal diseases all attempts towards their classification represent arbitrary procedures. The first reason for that is that not a single drag has ever been encountered which exhibits only one biological activity. The antimalarial drug chloroquine is also active on some inflammatory processes, the anxiolytic benzodiazepines possess antiepileptic properties, etc. On the other hand, the scientific communities have different needs a chemical classification may sometimes be very useful to medicinal chemists but strictly of no interest to a social security employee. Conversely pharmacologists and physicians will probably prefer the physiological classification. 

Classification of antimalarial drugs in relation to the different stages of the life-cycle of the parasite. From L. J. Bruce-Chwatt, Bull. Wld. Hlth. Org. 27, 287 (1962) [32 33]... 

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