In the 1950s, a pandemic of childhood paralysis broke out in the world. Thousands of children die.
The disease, of course, is scary in our country as well. It leaves a large number of disabled people for life, while others fail to overcome it and go out.
At that time, the "magical" nivalin drug appears. It stops the epidemic and saves thousands of lives. But how many people today know the name of its creator Dimitar Paskov?
A few years ago I worked on an exhibition - "Bulgarian Trace of Science". Facing I was in front of the question the names of the scientists to include in it. I wanted them to be people who left a lasting trace not only in Bulgarian but also in world science.
I will quote part of an interview with the President of the Balkan Association of History and Philosophy of Medicine Prof. Dr. Miladin Apostolov from 2009: "A criterion for the value of an achievement is above all its application in practice and the receipt of national and international recognitions . In that
not the number of discoveries is important, but their significance.
As a good example, the discovery of the niwaline by Prof. Dimitar Paskov could be of use to us. This is just one discovery, but it conquers the world and scientists from many countries and to this day expand the parameters of its successful application all over the world. I recently flipped a French authoritative academic edition and found numerous studies confirming the positive curative effect in new and new areas of medicine. "
The undisputed fact is that
Apart from the roses, the athletes and the "umbrella"
of secret services is known to the general public with yoghurt and nivaline. This highly effective anti-parasitic drug has long received international recognition. His inventor, however, is unknown not only to the international community but also to ours. Too little and too scarce is the data I have found for him but I am still deeply convinced that through the nivalin Prof. Dr. Dimitar Paskov has earned the honor not to be forgotten by the generations.
He was born in 1914 in the village of Gorno Brodi, Macedonia (present-day Greece), but his family settled in the Peshtera refugee wave after the Second Balkan War.
Medicine for him is a vocation -
half a century of his life devotes himself to the medical profession, and his research in the field of pharmacological science makes him famous not only in our country. He is one of the founders of contemporary Bulgarian experimental pharmacology and the most prominent continuum of the work of Prof. Dr. Petar Nikolov - the first Bulgarian scientist to work in the field of experimental pharmacology and toxicology.
In 1935, Dr. Petar Nikolov, private associate professor, read his introductory lecture "Our People's Funds", in which he highlighted:
"It must be remembered that scientific medicine has developed from the folk",
and makes for the first time an in-depth analysis of the great wealth of our people, the so-called "folk pharmacopoeia".
His disciple and follower Dimitar Paskov graduated from the University of Sofia in 1940. From 1941 to 1945 he was a local physician in the village of Piga and in Peshtera (here I will open a clause - with a survey of the municipality and the local history museum among the citizens of prof Dr. Dimitar Paskov was elected as a person of the century in the town of Peshtera). Since 1945 he has been assistant professor and chief assistant at the Department of Pharmacology at the Medical Faculty of the Sofia University. Five years later he became Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Experimental Medicine at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and then headed the Research Group at the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Workshop in Sofia.
He specializes in Leningrad under the guidance of the world-renowned Russian pharmacologist Sergey Anichkov. Since 1959 he has been a Doctor of Medical Sciences, since 1961 as a Professor, and from 1963 to 1977 he has been Head of the Department of Pharmacology at the Higher Medical Institute in Sofia.
This is a period associated with
the creation of the first laboratories
in the Department of Pharmacology, with laboratory tests, with experimental productions and 24-hour experiments on new drugs, with the development of many dissertations. With his vast experience and knowledge, Prof. Paskov teaches dozens of future pharmacologists. Under his guidance, scientific papers protect 12 post-graduate students who have grown up as leaders in their profession.
At that time a strong team of chemists worked with pharmacologists.
The dream of every doctor-pharmacologist
is to link pharmacological mechanisms to the chemical structure of the preparation and to bring scientific preclinical research into a drug that can be incorporated into production and used in the treatment of patients. This lengthy and difficult process, which millions of millions of pharmaceutical companies today are released in the years 1956-1980, is held in the Department of Pharmacology by the students of Prof. Paskov and under his direction. Nivalin, Pymadin, Cytisin, Nivalin P, Dibazol, INHA-17, Verbascan, Aminton, Depreton, Dimex and others are being developed and started to be produced. There are dozens of purified chemical and active substance extracts from medicinal plants.
Early retired by the then chairman of the Medical Academy, the professor continued his research and the leadership of his recent dissertations Nadka Boyadzhieva and Mila Vlaskovska.
The original product
of plant origin nivalin was created in 1956 when Dimitar Paskov extracts the anticholinesterase ingredient from the leaves and the colors of the marsh snowdrop. This is an alkaloid that they call galantamine. Isolated in pure form, this ingredient is named nivalin.
In those years, nivalin was used in neuroscience, especially in the treatment of polio. It treats children who have suffered a child's paralysis who are disabled to the extent that they can not perform active movements. Treatment gives extraordinary results -
motor functions sharply improved,
and facial nerve damage resolves.
As in many other cases, and for this one has a legend. According to this legend, Dr. Paul Paskov's chief provocateur and assistant was a polio-sick girl who drank the water from a glass of ditches in it, left by his parents on the table beside the bed. As a result, there has been some improvement in the girl's condition.
Although it is uncertain whether this is the reason why Dr. Paskov starts the research on galanthamine, it is sure that he has a great interest in his monograph "Nivalin", which has already been translated into Italian, and the drug itself
the prestigious international award "Enyo"
(often called "Pharmaceutical" Oscar) for contributions to science.
This is a unique preparation with a large therapeutic range. It is used for the treatment of polio, cerebral palsy, neurological diseases affecting the central and peripheral nervous system and is also useful in the treatment of dementia of the Alzheimer type.
Dimitar Paskov is the first chairman of the Scientific Medical Society of Pharmacology and one of its founders. He is a member of the International Brainwashing Organization. It also introduces a large number of experimental methods in our country. He creates a prosperous scientific school by Bulgarian pharmacologists. Prof. Paskov's research work focuses on the pharmacology of the nervous, cardiovascular and digestive system in order to create new drugs of plant and synthetic origin and the search for new anti-tuberculosis agents (preparation INHA-17).
He is the author of 20 inventions and formulations,
2 rationalizations and about 140 scientific publications, messages, textbooks and reference books. The most important of them are "Recipe Physician", "Nivalin" (translation in Italian), "INHA-17" (translation in Russian, English and French). Together with Prof. Dr. D. Peychev, he published a textbook on pharmacology, which has undergone several editions.