Perspectives on the Teaching of Pharmacology

Abstract

Pharmacology teaches that drugs develop actions and produce effects. The objective of this knowledge can be the treatment of the sick, of the individual man or the collective protection of health. From the point of view of curative medicine, what exists are "sick people", but from the social and preventive point of view, what exists is "disease". Until now, an excessive emphasis has been placed on the study of drugs as a healing agent for a patient, but it is impossible to guide the teaching of Pharmacology also in the preventive sense. Socially, not only the cure of the malarial is of interest, but also the cure against malaria. Furthermore, since the ultimate and greatest objective of modern medicine must be health, Pharmacology must also focus its development, and with it the teaching of this discipline, towards the promotion of health.