pharmacology
(fɑːməˈkɒlədʒɪ)
[ad. mod.L. pharmacologia (W. Harris 1683): see pharmaco- and -logy.]
That branch of medical science which relates to drugs, their preparation, uses, and effects; the science or theory of pharmacy.
| 1721 Bailey, Pharmacology, a Treatise concerning the Art of preparing Medicines. 1800 Med. Jrnl. III. 576 This work..answers the requisites of a good practical Pharmacology. 1875 H. C. Wood Therap. (1879) 17 Pharmacology is the general term employed to embrace these three divisions [Pharmacy, Therapeutics, Materia Medica]. 1883 Nature XXVII. 542/2 The knowledge of the action of remedies, or Pharmacology. |
Hence
ˌpharmacoˈlogical a., pertaining or relating to pharmacology (whence
ˌpharmacoˈlogically adv.);
ˌpharmacoˈlogic a. (chiefly
U.S.)
= pharmacological a.;
pharmaˈcologist, a person versed in pharmacology.
| 1901 T. Sollmann Text-bk. Pharmacol. 8 The organic poisons..often require *pharmacologic experience for their recognition. 1973 Sci. Amer. Sept. 123/3 Psychiatry..has two faces, one represented by treatment at the psychosocial level and the other by treatment at the pharmacologic level. |
| 1851–9 Hooker in Man. Sci. Enq. 421 Upon *pharmacological subjects Lindley's Flora Medica..will be found valuable. 1873 J. W. Legg in St. Barth. Hosp. Rep. IX. 163 Operations..done in the pharmacological laboratory. |
| 1900 Lancet 8 Dec. 1644/2 The aldehydes are *pharmacologically active. |
| a 1728 Woodward Fossils (J.), The osteocolla is recommended by the *pharmacologists as an absorbent and conglutinator of broken bones. 1881 Huxley in Nature XXIV. 346/2 Sooner or later, the pharmacologist will supply the physician with the means of affecting, in any desired sense, the functions of any physiological element of the body. |