What is Pharmacology - Essay Example

The word pharmacology has a Greek origin. According to Burkert (1985), in Greek religion, ‘Pharmakos’ is referred to as a human scapegoat. Whenever there was disaster or crisis, the Greeks offered a sacrifice of a human, as means of purification or purging the society. This act was religious, conducted as part of the Greek religion, to serve the purpose of societal catharsis. The ancient Greeks maintained outcasts at public expense to serve as human scapegoats when needed.

Their underlying belief was that sacrificing these scapegoats would purify the society of evil and the gods will be pleased. The term ‘Pharmakos’ then underwent a lot of evolution over time. At first, the word became ‘Pharmakeus’ meaning a spell-giving potion or poisoner. Another development in the term was the word ‘Phamakon’ meaning purging, purifying, or remedial intervention. From this, the term Pharmacology evolved (Hollinger, 2003). The composition of the word ‘Pharmacology’ is quite simple, based on two words: Pharmakon, meaning drug, and logy, meaning study or discourse; wherein drug refers to any chemical or toxin that can have a desirable or undesirable impact on a living organism (Muid, 2006).

The simplest meaning to be derived from this definition is that Pharmacology is the study of drugs (Muid, 2006). The subject of pharmacology covers three broad terms: physiology, toxicology, and biochemistry, all of which are related to the study of the impact of chemicals on living organisms. Pharmacology covers the aspects of drug usage in the study of physiological behavior, the biological effects of environmental chemicals, and using drugs as medicines. Pharmacology has many divisions based on the type of study.

Clinical pharmacology is the study of the medicinal effects of drugs on living beings, neurological pharmacology deals with the effects of a drug specifically on the nervous system, psycho pharmacology studies the positive and negative effects of various medications on the brain and behavior of individuals, pharmacogenetics involves the study of genetic differences among individuals of a same species in their response to same drugs and toxicology is the division of pharmacology devoted to studying of harmful effects of drugs specifically (Hollinger, 2003).

Today, the term Pharmacology is mostly used to refer to the branch of study that deals with drugs, medicines, poisons, and their effects on different living creatures including humans. The term however sometimes is also used as a more specific noun in the field of medicine, referring to the pharmacology of one specific drug. Thus, pharmacology is commonly used in two ways: to refer to a branch of science and to refer to the impact of a certain drug on living organisms.