[Danish pioneers of psychopharmacology].

Abstract

Although a small country, Denmark has played an important role in the development of modern psychopharmacology due to an active and ambitious pharmacological industry, excellent researchers and last but not least, far-sighted clinicians. The most prominent among these clinicians are portrayed here. Mogens Schou advocated throughout his long life for the benefits of lithium treatment for bipolar patients, Lars Gram for the use of drug monitoring in the pharmacological treatment of depressed patients, Erik Jacobsen invented Antabus for treatment of alcohol dependence and later became one of the first presidents of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP) and finally, Claus Braestrup was the first to describe the benzodiazepine receptor.