Am.  Jour.  Fharm. ) 
Apiil,  1904.  ) 
A  Symposium. 
183 
Mr.  Henry  Kraemer,  Editor  of  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy  : 
The  definitions  which  I  have  adopted  in  my  Therapeutics  and 
Materia  Medica  for  the  words  Pharmacology,  Pharmacognosy  and 
Materia  Medica  follow  closely  the  etymology  of  those  terms  and 
agree  generally  with  the  definitions  given  in  the  Standard  Diction- 
ary. The  Greek  word  Pharmacon  is  acknowledged  to  mean  a  drug 
or  medicine.  Pharmacopoeia  literally  means  "  I  make  medicines," 
1.  e.f  give  the  directions  for  preparing  and  compounding  medicines. 
Pharmacology  can  only  be  the  science  of  drugs.  In  its  broadest 
application  it  includes  everything  relating  to  drugs,  their  prepara- 
tions and  their  effects,  both  upon  the  human  body  and  the  lower 
animals.  Some  of  its  departments  are  Medical  Botany,  Ecology, 
Pharmacognosy,  Pharmacy,  Pharmacodynamics.  In  the  last,  Thera- 
peutics may  be  included  to  the  extent  that  it  refers  to  the  employ- 
ment of  drugs  in  the  prevention  or  treatment  of  diseases. 
Materia  Medica  comprises  what  a  physician  should  know  about 
the  remedies  in  repute  for  the  treatment  of  diseases.  It  is  an  elastic 
term  and  may  be  extended  so  as  to  correspond  with  Pharmacology, 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  limited  to  the  articles  in  the  Pharmacopoeia. 
Pharmacognosy  is  the  knowledge  of  the  qualities  of  unprepared 
medicines.  It  may  also  be  defined  as  the  science  of  poisons,  but  it 
should  not  be  so  used.  Pharmacodynamics  studies  the  physiological 
action  of  drugs.  Very  truly  yours, 
John  V.  Shoemaker. 
15 19  Walnut  Street,  February  4,  1904. 
Dear  Dr.  Kraemer  : 
I  scarcely  know  how  to  answer  your  query  as  to  the  meaning  of 
Pharmacology,  etc.,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  have  little  taste  for  these 
discussions.  Pharmacology  I  have  always  used  to  indicate  the  study 
of  the  effects  of  drugs  or  reactions  observed  between  chemical 
agents  and  living  matter,  without  reference  to  the  purpose  for  which 
they  are  used.  It  thus  includes  the  action  of  drugs  and  poisons  on 
plants  and  animals,  whether  normal  or  diseased,  and  whether  applied 
to  injure  or  kill  (poisons)  or  to  heal  (drugs).  One  branch  of  it,  em- 
braced under  therapeutics,  deals  with  the  effects  in  disease ;  another, 
toxicology,  with  the  effects  of  poisonous  doses.  Pharmacology  takes, 
to  my  mind,  no  cognizance  of  the  origin  of  the  chemical  agent  nor, 
in  fact,  of  its  chemical  nature.   Materia  Medica — a  much  older  term — 
