About the Book
This book has emerged from some thirty years of teaching undergraduate courses and conducting research in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry. It is conceived essentially as a foundation course in the basic principles of organic chemistry applied to the study of medicinal agents and the formulations in which they are used. It is intended primarily to cater for the needs of undergraduate students of pharmacy and medicinal chemistry. To reinforce the continuity of the subject between the two volumes, the author has provided a system of cross referencing between chapters, both within and between the two volumes. The basic philosophy underlying the text is that those concerned with the design and use of drugs and medicines are interested fundamentally in properties rather than in methods of manufacture. Attention is focused in Volume 1 on the physical and chemical properties of medicinal agents, pharmaceutical additives and cellular components, that determine the way in which they interact with each other. To achieve this end, substantial accounts of relevant intermediary tissue metabolism, drug transport and metabolism, and other factors affecting both stability and availability of drugs from dosage forms have been brought together in the general body of the text. This approach emphasizes the close similarity between chemical and biochemical transformations, and should help to give students and others engaged in the design of new drugs a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms which control interactions between drugs and body chemistry. The more general, but essentially similar approach to the Chemical Basis of Drug Action adopted in Volume2, which reinforces the basic principles for the specialist, should also appeal in its own right to clinical pharmacologists and others whose interests lie rather more in the action and use of drugs than in their design. Since this book is designed to assist in the education of students, many of whom will be engaged in later life in the handling and use of drugs in practice, examples are deliberately drawn from drugs in current use. |
