"' Dicoumarol "'( USAN ) is a naturally occurring anticoagulant that functions as a functional vitamin K depleter ( similar to warfarin, a drug that dicoumarol inspired ).
12.
Dicoumarol itself, for a short time, was employed as a medicinal anticoagulant drug, but since the mid-1950s has been replaced by its simpler derivative warfarin, and other 4-hydroxycoumarin drugs.
13.
Consequently, dicoumarol may be found in decaying sweet-clover, and was the cause of the so-called "'sweet-clover disease "', recognized in cattle in the 1920s.
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It is a derivative of coumarin, a bitter-tasting but sweet-smelling substance made by plants that does not itself affect coagulation, but which is ( classically ) transformed in mouldy feeds or silages by a number of species of fungi, into active dicoumarol.
15.
It is used in the pharmaceutical industry as a precursor reagent in the synthesis of a number of synthetic anticoagulant pharmaceuticals similar to dicoumarol, the notable ones being warfarin ( brand name Coumadin ) and some even more potent rodenticides that work by the same anticoagulant mechanism . 4-hydroxycoumarins are a type of vitamin K antagonist.
