VPT 311: General and Systemic Veterinary Pharmacology (2+1)

SCOPE OF PHARMACOLOGY 

• Pharmacology is the science which involves all aspects of the action of drugs on living system. It is the study of the therapeutic value and/or potential toxicity of chemical agents on biological systems. It targets every aspect of the mechanisms for the chemical actions of both traditional and novel therapeutic agents.
• Important and interrelated areas are: pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics.
• Pharmacodynamics is the study of how drugs act on the body while pharmacokinetics is the study of how the body acts on drugs. Pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic aspects of the action of chemical agents are applicable to all related areas of study, including toxicology and therapeutics.
• Toxicology is the study of the adverse or toxic effects of drugs and other chemical agents. It is concerned both with drugs used in the treatment of disease and chemicals that may present household, environmental, or industrial hazards.
• Therapeutics focuses on the actions and effects of drugs and other chemical agents with physiological, biochemical, microbiological, immunological, or behavioral factors influencing disease. Each of these areas is closely interwoven with the subject matter and experimental techniques of physiology, biochemistry, cellular biology, microbiology, immunology, genetics, and pathology. The ultimate goal of Pharmacology is to design chemical agents to cure , ameliorate, or preventdisease