THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 



take place during the next fifty years. 

 German schools of medicine are entering 

 upon this as yet untrodden and fertile 

 field of investigation, and we should 

 give it the attention that its importance 

 merits. It is not a matter that can be 

 taught, because it is as yet an unknown, 

 or practically an unknown, science, but 

 it can and should be made the subject of 

 investigation and study, so that we may 

 become acquainted with the facts that it 

 will give us and enable us to make use 

 of them in administering medicines. 

 How few physicians to-day know the 

 exact effect of the medicines they pre- 

 scribe on the various organs and what 

 is the cause of that effect ? They know 

 that jaborandi produces activity of cer- 

 tain glands, resulting in increased 

 secretions thereby, and they know 

 that the pilocarpine in these leaves 

 produce this effect, but do they know 

 what other effects pilocarpine produces 

 on the other organs, say on the blood, 

 liver, kidneys, etc., and do they know 

 what causes pilocarpine to produce this 

 effect ? They may say that it is not 

 necessary for them to know this, as the 

 effect is produced just the same, which 

 is all they desire. This is quite true, 

 and in the present state of our knowledge 

 of medicines and their effects it is about 

 all they can know ; but would not their 

 ability to combat disease and administer 

 medicines more scientifically and effect- 

 ively not be many times increased if our 

 knowledge of these same medicines and 

 their effects, and the cause of the effect, 

 were known to them. They would then 

 know that since, we will say for exam- 

 ple, pilocarpine interferes with the 

 functions of the liver it is not advisable 

 to use this drug for a patient who re- 

 quires a diaphoretic, but at the same 



time has a diseased liver. We might 

 perhaps have learned by that time that 

 a certain radical in the pilocarpine mole- 

 cule produced the untoward effect upon 

 the liver, but that pilocarpidine, while 

 still an effective diaphoretic, no longer 

 produced this effect on the liver, due to 

 the elimination from its molecule of the 

 undesirable radical present in the pilo- 

 carpine molecule. There can be no 

 doubt of one thing, and that is that 

 medicine in its narrow sense, i. e., the 

 science of the administration of drugs, 

 has not advanced at the same rate that 

 the science of surgery, bacteriology, 

 pathology or anatomy have during the 

 last half century. In fact, many physi- 

 cians have grown skeptical as to the 

 value of drugs and think the less of them 

 used, as a rule, the better. The devel- 

 opment and future above outlined for the 

 science of medicine in its narrow sense, 

 will, unquestionably, remove all such 

 skepticism and push therapeutics forward 

 as a most necessary and invaluable 

 requisite for the combating of disease. I 

 may be pardoned when I say that scien- 

 tific medicine, i. e., the scientific admin- 

 istration of drugs is only in its infancy at 

 present, and that most of our medicines 

 are administered empirically, i.e., are ad- 

 ministered not because we know exactly 

 why they are what our particular case in 

 hand calls for, but because experience has 

 taught us that they are effective and 

 will produce certain results. I do not 

 wish to be misunderstood in this connec- 

 tion, and when I say the administration 

 of medicine is largely empirical I do not 

 mean to state or imply anything deroga- 

 tory, but merely to say that our present 

 knowledge of the administration of med- 

 icine does not enable us to do anything 

 better. My purpose in going into this 



