Meperidine chemical properties

Morphine, when extracted from raw opium and treated chemically, yields the semisynthetic narcotics hydromorphone, oxymorphone, oxycodone, and heroin. Heroin is an illegal narcotic in the United States and is not used in medicine. Synthetic narcotics are those man-made analgesics with properties and actions similar to the natural opioids. Examples of synthetic narcotic analgesics are methadone, levorphanol, remifen-tanil, and meperidine Additional narcotics are listed in the Summary Drug Table Narcotic Analgesics. 

During the late 1930s some 4-phenylpiperidine derivatives were examined as potential spasmolytics on the basis of their chemical relationship to atropine. The antinociceptive properties of one member, ethyl 1-methyl-4-phenyl-piperidine-4-carboxylate, was detected in screening tests and the compound was subsequently introduced into clinical use by Eisleb and Schaumann in 1939. The compound, well known as pethidine in Europe and meperidine in North America (proprietary names include Demerol, Dolantin, and Dolosal), was soon in widespread use for the relief of pain, and it is remarkable how pethidine, the original non-opioid-derived opioid analgesic, has retained its popularity for many years in the face of competition from other synthetic analgesics introduced since 1939. 

MPPP, also referred to as meperidine, is a synthetic analgesic with morphinelike properties. If the chemical reaction used to synthesize MPPP is not carefully regulated, a toxic by-product is also produced. When this latter molecule, MPTP, is inadvertently consumed, it is converted in the brain to MPP+, a neurotoxic agent, in an oxidation reaction catalyzed by monoamine oxidase (see p. 517). 

In the year 1939, Schaumann first identified and recognized the presence of a quatemaiy-carbon-atom in the morphine molecule, whieh eventually formed an altogether new basis and opened up a new horizon in the field of drug design ofnareotie analgesics. Intensive research further led to the evolution of pethidine (meperidine) which incidentally combines both the properties of morphine and atropine. It possesses a quaternary carbon-atom and quite astonishingly a mueh simpler chemical structure to that of morphine. 

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