THE HISTORY OF PHARMACOLOGY

Ancient civilizations discovered that extracts from plants, animals, and minerals had medicinal effects on body tissue. These discoveries became the foundation of empirical pharmacology. It was not until the late 1800s that developments in the sciences of physiology, organic chemistry, and biochemistry provided the scientific approach that is used in today’s pharmacology. Pharmacology is one of the pillars of the drug discovery process. While the medicinal/organic chemist may create the candidate compound (sometimes referred to as a new chemical entity, NCE), it is the pharmacologist, who is responsible for testing it for pharmacological activity. An NCE is eventually investigated by several other groups of scientists (toxicologists, microbiologists, and clinicians) if it has demonstrated a potential therapeutic effect.

The key figure in the development of pharmacology was Rudolph Buchheim (1820 –1879), a German pharmacologist who was born in Bautzen. In 1845 he earned his doctorate from the University of Leipzig and soon after became a professor at the University of Dorpat. While at Dorpat he created the first pharmacological institute. In 1867 he became professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Giessen. Buchheim is remembered for his pioneer work in experimental pharmacology. He was instrumental in turning pharmacology from an empirical study of medicine into an exact science. He introduced the bioassay to pharmacology, and created a methodology for determining the quantative and medical aspects of chemical substances.

Then Oswald Schmiedeberg (1838–1921) obtained his medical doctorate in 1866 with a thesis on the measurement of chloroform in blood. He worked at the University of Dorpat in Hungary under Rudolph Buchheim. After three years he became professor at the University of Strasbourg and head of an institute of pharmacology. In 1878 he published the classic text Outline of Pharmacology. In his 46 years at Strasbourg, Schmiedeberg he, trained a number of preeminent scientists who populated the great centers of scientific learning throughout many countries. One of these was John Jacob Abel. He founded and chaired the first department of pharmacology in the United States at the University of Michigan. In 1893, In 1897 he went on to chair the pharmacology department at Johns Hopkins University. Abel also co-founded the Journal of Biological Chemistry with Christian Archibald Herter in 1905 and the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 1909.

Abel was one of the many students of Oswald Schmiederberg who founded pharmacology departments all over the world including Genoa, Heidelberg, Berlin, Padua, Japan, Edinburgh, and the United States.