Pharmacology is the study of drugs, including their development, effects on biological systems, therapeutic use, and toxicity. It has several branches including pharmacodynamics, which studies a drug's biological effects and mechanisms of action; pharmacokinetics, which examines a drug's movement through the body; and pharmacotherapy, which applies pharmacological knowledge to treat diseases. Pharmacology is a relatively recent medical science that studies all aspects of chemicals administered for diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of disease, including their preparation, identification, effects, and optimal use. A drug has three names - its chemical, generic, and proprietary names.

2. PHARMACOLOGY
oScience of drugs
oGreek words= pharmakon (drug)
and logos (study)
oDeals with interaction of
exogenously administered chemical
molecules with living system

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

4. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
 Recent branch of medical science ~
100 y old
 World’s oldest pharmacological or
therapeutic writing come from China
and India

5. BRANCHES/DIVISIONS OF
PHARMACOLOGY
1) Pharmcodynamics (Greek:dynamis,
power)
Deals with biological effects
(pharmacologic and toxic) and
mechanism of action of the drug

6. 2) Pharmacokinetics
(Greek:kinesis, 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. 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

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