Al-Kindi: pioneer of pharmacology

A few books related to pharmacy were written by Al-Kindi (800-873), known as the philosopher of the Arabs.

His name was Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq ibn al-Sabbah al-Kindi. He was born in Kuffah, southern Iraq. He flourished in Baghdad, then capital of the Abbasid Empire and center of its intellectual life.

He became a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom, a number of Abbasid Caliphs appointed him to oversee the translation of Greek texts into the Arabic.

This contact with ‘the philosophy of the ancients’ had a profound effect on his intellectual development thus led him to write original treatises on subjects ranging from Islamic ethics and metaphysic to Islamic mathematics and pharmacology.

In his medical works he follows traditional, mostly Galenic paradigms. In his book ‘aqrabadhin’ or Medical Formulary al-Kindi describes many pharmaceutical preparations.

The Latin version of his work on optics, De Aspectibus, was very influential among Western scientists and philosophers.

The most important of al-Kindi’s medical wirings, is De gradibus, a remarkable work in which in an original departure form traditional, he attempts to apply mathematics to pharmacology.

Pharmacology, optics, chemistry and alchemy were of particular interest to Arab scientists Islamic medicine and pharmacology drew on many sources. Al-Kindi included drugs from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece and India was well as traditional Arab remedies.
Al-Kindi: pioneer of pharmacology

History of pharmacology

The term pharmacology is derived from the Greek words pharmakon, which means ‘a drug’ and logos, which means a ‘reasonable’ or ‘rational discussion’.

In almost every culture, healers mixed their medicine with onions, garlic, urine, excrement or other foul smelling or strong tasting stuff.

Since the immemorial, medicaments have been used for treating disease in humans and animals. The world oldest accounts of therapeutic were from India and China. The Rigveda was written in 2500-3000 BC.

In China the earliest record compilation of drugs, the Pen Tiao consisted of a list of herbal remedies complied in the reign of Chinese Emperor Shennung in 2700 BC.

Later, Charaka, an ancient physician and Sushruta, a renowned surgeon, described various medicinal preparations.

The first true material medica, a compilation so therapeutic substances and their uses, was compiled in 77 AD by Aristotle’s student Diascorides, while serving as a surgeon in Nero’s Roman Legion.

In the 17th century, a favorite medicine was ‘Elixir Universale’. It contained gold, powdered lions heart, witch hazel, earthworms, dried human brains and Egyptians onions.

Johann Jakob Wepfer (1620-1695) was the first to verify by animal experimentation assertions about pharmacological or toxicological actions.

It is only in the last 60 or 70 years ago that chemists have begin to discover all the acids, sugar, alkaloids, starches, gum, resins, tannin, oils, mucilage, vitamins, steroids, minerals traces of metals and other active ingredients in plants.
History of pharmacology

History of pharmacology

Pharmacology is both an ancient science and a relatively new science. For centuries, humans have used plants and has been a search for way to alleviate the pain and suffering associated with life.

In Asia, the earliest recorded compilation of drugs, the Pen Tiao, consisted of a list of herbal remedies compiled in the reign of Chinese Emperor Shennung in 2700 BC.

The Papyrus Ebers of 1500 BC was an Egyptian document that listed more than 700 medical compounds and more than 800 prescription.

The first true de material medica, a compilation of therapeutic substance and their uses, was compiled in 77 AD by Aristotle’s student Dioscorides, while serving as a surgeon in Nero’s Roman Legion throughout the Mediterranean. It listed more than 600 medicinal plants including some still in use today.

Claudius Galen (AD 129-200) was the first attempted to consider the theoretical background of pharmacology.

Though the first western pharmacological treatise was compile in the first century AD, scientific pharmacology was possible only from the eighteenth century in, when drugs could be purified and standardized.

Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), called Paracelsus, began to question doctrines handed down from antiquity, demanding knowledge of the active ingredient in prescribed remedies, while rejecting the irrational concoctions and mixtures of medicine.

Until the end of the 19th century, medicines were natural organic or inorganic products, mostly dried but also fresh, plants or plant parts.

The term Pharmakologie was applied to the study of material medica by Dale in London as early as 1692.

In 1847, biochemist Rudolph Buchheim was appointed professor of pharmacology at the University of Dorpat and he established the first true experimental laboratory dedicated to pharmacology.

Experimental pharmacology to emerge as a separate discipline in the 19th century, as an offshoot of physiology.

At first it found its academic home in schools of medicine, the 20th century has seen the science of pharmacology established in schools of pharmacy as well.
History of pharmacology

Father of modern pharmacology

Pharmacological research started in Europe in the second half of the 19th century when researchers investigated the action of existing drugs in animals experiments. One of them is Oswald Schmiedeberg. 

Oswald Schmiedeberg, Baltic German (1838-1921) is considering as the founder of modern pharmacology.

He obtained his doctorate in medicine in 1866 for his work on the estimation of chloroform in blood. He also contributed to the study of chloralhydarte.

In 1871 he was appointed it the newly established chair in pharmacology at the University of Strasburg, where he remained until 1918.

Oswald Schmiedeberg created the first journal for the new science and published a classic textbook that went through seven editions in several languages.

Under Oswald Schmiedeberg’s directorship the Strasbourg institute became a leading center for research and education.

During the 46 years Oswald Schmiedeberg occupied his chair, he trained most of those who were to become professors of pharmacology at German and foreign university.

His institute became a mecca for the students of pharmacology from all over the world, the training ground for a whole generation of practitioners of the new science.
Father of modern pharmacology