1 86  A  Symposium.  {AmAJPXii&arnK 
of  to-day,  from  the  fact  that  as  science  in  general  became  more 
popular,  the  progressive  medical  minds  desired  to  know  the  whys 
and  wherefores  of  results  obtained  through  medicines.  This  laud- 
able ambition  opened  the  way  to  an  endless  amount  of  experimenta- 
tion, which  has  resulted  in  the  ultra  scientific  individual  preferring 
to  draw  a  line  between  the  primitive  conception,  descriptive,  and  the 
more  modern,  applied,  and  to  each  assign  distinctive  names — to  the 
former  materia  medica,  or  pure  materia  medica ;  to  the  latter,  phar- 
macology and  therapeutics. 
(2)  Pharmacology,  Gr.  (pappaxov  (pharmocon)  -f  A.o'j-o?  (logos), 
Xoyia  (logia) — pharmaco(n)log(-ia)y.  Here  again  we  have  two  for- 
eign simples  contributing  to  form  our  term,  each  carrying  several 
meanings;  the  former  (jpdppiaxov)  signifies  literally — any  artificial 
means  for  producing  physical  effects,  which  again  is  very  compre- 
hensive, but  the  Greeks  shaded  this  conception  by  assigning  to  it 
a  more  restrictive  meaning— a  medicine,  drug,  remedy;  thus 
yfLschylus  wrote :  (pappaxov  voaou,  a  medicine  for  sickness ;  the 
latter  word  (A-ofo?)  is  equally  sweeping,  for  natives  employed  it  so 
universally — sometimes  to  mean  a  word,  or  words,  a  saying,  speak- 
ing, language,  talk,  statement,  dialogue,  conversation,  discussion, 
discourse,  history,  account,  consideration,  etc.  Consequently  it  is 
evident,  should  we  so  desire,  there  is  nothing  etymologically  that 
could  prevent  the  employment  of  the  word  pharmacology  with  the 
broadest  latitude — as  a  true  synonym  or  companion  term  to  materia 
medica,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  accepted  very  often. 
When  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  some  of  the  leading 
scientists,  especially  in  Germany,  took  up  experimental  vivisection, 
and  the  application  of  drugs  to  the  living  animal,  man  included,  the 
word  pharmacology  was  coined,  and  ever  since  in  that  country  it 
has  maintained  this  restricted  signification — the  science  of  remedies, 
other  than  foods :  how  these  when  administered,  in  fine  subdivision, 
act  and  produce  changes  in  the  living  organism ;  the  explanation  of 
the  symptoms  created  in  health  or  sickness  by  substances  detri- 
mental or  useful ;  how  drugs  effect  our  organs,  tissues,  fluids, 
secretions,  etc.,  thereby  accomplishing  work.  Thus  it  would  seem 
to  deal  with  invisible  theories,  while  materia  medica  with  visible  mate- 
rials, and  thereby  becomes  but  another  name  for  the  physiological 
action  of  drugs  and  their  constituents  in  health  and  sickness.  This 
field  is  so  comprehensive,  important  and  different  from  the  older 
