Experimental  Pharmacology. 
S  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
J  November,  1910. 
percussion,  making  it  possible  to  study  more  accurately  the  effects 
of  disease  and  consequently  the  action  of  remedies. 
In  1817  morphine  was  isolated  by  Seitiirner.  Thus,  a  definite 
plant  product  was  substituted  for  an  indefinite  crude  drug.  Animal 
experimentation  was  begun  and  gave  rise  to  modern  pharmacology. 
In  a  recent  article  by  Doctor  Horatio  Wood,  Jr.,  entitled,  "  The 
Value  and  Limitations  of  Physiological  Standardization,"  he  points 
out  the  fact  that  experimental  pharmacology  is  a  new  science,  that 
the  first  experimental  pharmacologist,  in  the  modern  acceptation  of 
the  term,  is  still  living  and  teaching.  He  discusses  the  danger  of 
error  in  the  biological  test  and  shows  the  necessity  of  its  use  in  the 
standardization  of  certain  pharmacopceial  products  and  the  testing 
of  the  efficiency  of  others.  He  calls  attention  especially  to  the  work 
done  upon  digitalis  and  ergot  by  Americans  and  Europeans,  of  the 
new  methods  introduced  by  Doctor  Reid  Hunt  in  the  study  of 
glandular  products,  and  to  the  fact  that  the  problems  which  the 
pharmacologist  is  asked  to  solve  at  once  make  a  herculean  task, 
surrounded  by  numerous  difficulties. 
To  one  who  has  studied  the  subject  ever  so  superficially  it  is 
evident  the  treatment  of  disease  by  drugs  is  to  be  made  rational  by 
introducing  into  our  schools  courses  in  experimental  pharmacology. 
I  believe  the  lack  of  such  training  is  the  greatest  defect  in  our 
present  system  of  medical  education. 
A  student  may  be  very  well  trained  in  the  fundamental  branches 
of  medicine,  such  as  anatomy,  chemistry,  physics,  physiology,  bac- 
teriology, and  pathology,  he  may  be  skilled  in  modern  methods  of 
physical  and  clinical  diagnosis  and  still  know  nothing  about  the 
changes  induced  in  the  physiology  of  the  normal  animal  body  by  the 
introduction  of  drugs  and  much  less  about  their  use  in  diseased  con- 
ditions. For  example,  as  a  medical  student  I  remember  the  impor- 
tance that  was  placed  upon  strychnine  as  a  therapeutic  agent.  I 
was  taught  that  it  was  a  tonic  par  excellence,  that  it  increased  all 
the  functions  of  the  body,  that  it  increased  the  activity  of  the  heart, 
that,  in  large  doses,  it  induced  convulsions,  that  it  was  useful  in 
diseases  of  the  heart,  in  certain  digestive  disturbances,  in  emaciated 
conditions,  etc.,  etc.  In  a  like  manner  I  was  taught  the  physiological 
action  and  therapeutic  application  of  a  hundred  other  substances. 
When  I  was  through  with  it  all,  it  seemed  the  most  unsatisfactory 
subject  in  the  medical  curriculum.  If,  in  the  beginning,  I  had  been 
given  a  frog  and  told  to  inject  a  certain  quantity  of  strychnine  into 
