Author(s): John Wilson
Some similar chemicals with neutral or even slightly acidic characteristics are also included in this group. Alkaloids are manmade substances that have a similar structure. Alkaloids can contain oxygen, sulphur and, in rare cases, additional elements like chlorine, bromine and phosphorus, in addition to carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. There is no apparent distinction between alkaloids and other nitrogen-containing natural substances. Alkaloids are not commonly used to describe compounds such as amino acid peptides, proteins, nucleotides, nucleic acid, amines or antibiotics. Natural substances with exocyclic nitrogen are commonly categorised as amines rather than alkaloids. Alkaloids, on the other hand, are thought to be a particular case of amines by certain authors. The term "alkaloids" was coined by German chemist Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Meitner in 1819 and it is derived from the Late Latin word alkali and the suffix-o.
