INTRODUCTION TO PHARMACOLOGY

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INTRODUCTION TO PHARMACOLOGY
DR.SHABANA ALI
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PHARMACOLOGY

• Science of drugs
• Greek words pharmakon (drug) and logos (study)
• Deals with interaction of exogenously
  administered chemical molecules with living
  system

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• All aspects of the study of drugs including drug
  development, drug-biological system interaction,
  therapeutics and toxicology

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Recent branch of medical science 100 y old
• Worlds oldest pharmacological or therapeutic
  writing come from China and India

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BRANCHES/DIVISIONS OF PHARMACOLOGY

• Pharmcodynamics (Greekdynamis, power)
• Deals with biological effects (pharmacologic and
  toxic) and mechanism of action of the drug

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2) Pharmacokinetics (Greekkinesis, movement)

• Refers to movement of the drug in, through and
  out of the body to achieve drug action
• Four major processes absorption, distribution,
  biotransformation and excretion

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3) Pharmcotherapeutics

• Application of pharmacological information
  together with knowledge of the disease for its
  prevention or cure i.e. use of drugs in treatment
  of disease
• 4) Clinical pharmacology
• Scientific study of drugs in man
• Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics
  investigation in healthy volunteers and in
  patients

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5) Chemotherapy

• Treatment of systemic infection/malignancy with
  specific drugs that have toxicity for infecting
  organism with no/minimal effects on host cells
• 6) Pharmacy
• Preparation, compounding and dispensing the drugs
• Collection, identification, purification,
  isolation, synthesis, standardization and quality
  control of medicinal substances
• Large scale manufacture of drugs is Pharmaceutics

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7) Toxicology

• Study of poisonous effects of drugs and other
  chemicals (household environmental pollutants,
  industrial, agricultural, homicidal) with
  emphasis on detection, prevention and treatment
  of poisoning
• Study of adverse effects of drugs

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8) Pharmaceutical chemistry

• Deals with chemical structure and chemical
  reactions of active principles of drugs
• 9) Pharmacognosy (Materia Medica)
• Deals with source, identification, physical and
  chemical characteristic of drugs obtained from
  plants
• 10) Posology
• Deals with doses

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DRUG

• Derived from French word, drogue (dry herb)
• Chemical substance used in minute quantities for
  the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of
  diseases
• All biologically active chemicals including
  poisons and addictive substances are drugs

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MEDICINE

• Chemical prep. usually but not necessarily
  contains one or more drugs administered with the
  intention of therapy
• Active drugother sub. For its convenient use
• Drugs are given as such rather than released by
  physiological mechanism

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DRUG NOMENCLATURE

• Drug has 3 names
• 1) Chemical Name
• According to molecular structure of drug
• Long, complicated, inconvenient and not used
  clinically
• e.g. acetylsalicylic acid of aspirin

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2) GENERIC NAME (NON PROPRIETARY)

• Official name or approved name
• Simple, accepted world wide and used in text
  books, pharmacopoeias, medical journals and other
  reference books
• E.g. ampicillin, aspirin

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• 3) Proprietary Name
• Brand name chosen by pharmaceutical firm
• Same drug may have different names
• e.g. paracetamol (Acenol, Aminol, Atamol etc)