Preface

This book deals with principles in general pharmacology—the key ideas that are applied to virtually all drug classes —and thus seems to us the proper subject matter with which to launch the Springer Series in Pharmacologic Sciences. The book is designed to meet the modern need for a better understanding of pharmacologic principles. It is an intermediate text directed mainly, but not only, to students who have completed a first course in pharmacology and who now need greater detail on concepts fundamental to understanding much of the research literature —especially the parts that are quantitative. Physicians having a special interest in pharmacology will also find much useful information here. The book integrates topics that we have included in several courses to health science students in graduate and professional schools in recent years. The "principles” are those key concepts that are applicable to a wide range of drug classes and include pharmacokinetics, drug biotransformation, receptor interaction, and the key ideas underlying the expression and interpretation of dose- response data. These concepts have their roots in the more basic sciences of physics and chemistry. Some readers may feel that we omitted concepts that might be considered “principles”; hence we have used the preposition “in,” not "of,” in the title of this book.
Because its individual chapters are essentially self-contained, the book can be used in a variety of courses....

П. Скорупський