Cooperation  Between 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
<•    November,  19 17. 
COOPERATION  BETWEEN  PHARMACOLOGY  AND 
THERAPEUTICS.1 
By  Albion  Walter  Hewlett,  M.D. 
SAN  FRANCISCO. 
It  is  important  that  a  healthy  cooperation  should  exist  between 
those  who  are  engaged  in  the  scientific  study  of  drug  action  and 
those  who  use  drugs  for  the  purpose  of  curing  or  alleviating  dis- 
ease; for  the  problems  of  pharmacology,  like  those  of  pathology, 
have  a  very  immediate  bearing  on  medical  practice.  Established 
modes  of  treatment  frequently  form  the  starting  point  of  scientific 
studies,  and  the  exact  knowledge  thus  gained  leads  in  turn  to  greater 
precision  in  treatment.  Pharmacologic  studies  have  uncovered  new 
therapeutic  possibilities  that  have  ultimately  proved  useful  in  the 
clinic.  Finally,  a  clear  recognition  of  the  fact  that  substances  of 
similar  chemical  structure  frequently  possess  pharmacologic  proper- 
ties that  are  similar  but  not  identical  has  opened  up  a  vast  field  of 
research.  Numerous  compounds  of  a  given  type  are  now  produced 
with  comparative  ease  by  the  organic  chemist.  While  many  or  most 
of  these  may  possess  no  great  practical  advantage  over  their  orig- 
inal prototypes,  yet  such  studies  are  constantly  leading  to  improve- 
ments in  our  remedies,  and  the  possibility  is  always  present  that  the 
systematic  combination  of  chemical  and  pharmacologic  research  will 
tap  important  fields  that  have  hardly  been  suspected  hitherto. 
Now  more  than  ever  before,  therapeutic  advance  depends  on  an 
intelligent  utilization  of  the  methods,  the  criticisms  and  the  new  dis- 
coveries of  pharmacology.  Older  remedies  are  being  restudied,  and 
from  the  host  of  newer  ones  that  are  constantly  being  placed  before 
the  profession  an  intelligent  choice  must  be  made.  Before  I  under- 
take to  discuss  how  cooperation  between  the  pharmacologist  and 
therapeutist  may  be  promoted,  however,  it  may  be  well  to  point  out 
some  of  the  factors  which  tend  to  separate  these  two  classes  of 
workers.  In  the  first  place,  their  attitudes  toward  their  respective 
problems  are  essentially  different.    The  pharmacologist  contem- 
1  Chairman's  address,  read  before  the  Section  on  Pharmacology  and 
Therapeutics  at  the  Sixty-eighth  Annual  Session  of  the  American  Medical 
Association,  New  York,  June,  1917.  Reprinted  from  the  Journal  of  the 
American  Medical  Association,  October  6,  1917- 
