Pharmacology

According to most studies, allergic reactions represent 35%-50% of all untoward reactions to drugs, yet the pharmacological literature concerning the clinical aspects, diagnosis, and pathophysiological mechanisms of drug allergy is markedly less extensive than reports dealing with the toxicological or pharmacological effects of drugs.

Many chemotherapeutic agents introduced for use in humans are carcinogenic in laboratory animals (Conklin et al.

The Editorial Board of the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology apparently did not hurry in suggesting production of a volume on glucagon since the present opus is number sixty-six in the series.

The ~uestion of whether an infant's diet represents a health hazard is not new.

When discussing the drug, the bug, and the host in the past, emphasis was laid mainly upon the interaction between antibiotics and bacteria or the reaction of the host to the invading organism.

Primary myocardial disease, nowadays referred to as congestive or, more re- cently, dilating cardiomyopathy, comprises disorders of varied etiology.

Fever has always been recognised as the major sign of infectious disease as well as being associated with other illnesses.

Nervous system is in the most cases a likely target for the untoward effects of chemicals.

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An International Symposium "e;Catecholamines and the Heart"e; was held in Munich in May 1981, which was organized in cooperation with the Council on Cardiac Metabolism of the International Society and Federation of Cardiology and with the Microcirculation Working Group of the European Society of Cardiology.

First described in 1907 by Schicke but recognized as a clinical entity only as recently as 1958, when Teare published the pathologic findings in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HeM), an explosion of knowledge about this fascinating disease has occurred, which has caused a profound evolution of our understanding of its broad pathophysiologic and clinical spectrum.

The book you are just going to read represents the greater part of the papers presented at the International Conference on Industrial and En- vironmental Xenobiotics, held in Prague, 1980, and some contributions by those who could not come.

This volume places more emphasis on endogenous mediators of gut motility than on drugs used to treat patients with deranged motility.

Since the exhaustive Handbook of Physiology (Alimentary Canal, Section 6, Motility) edited by CHARLES F.

To comment at length on the importance of the benzodiazepines seems superfluous within the scope of this preface.

Cyclic nucleotides are intimately involved in the consequences of either stimulation or blockade of receptors; therefore, an understanding of the biochemistry of cyclic nucleotides ought to be important for pharmacologists.

The pharmacokinetics of digitalis glycosides have been the subject of extensive re- view (IISALO, 1977; ARONSON, 1980; PERRIER et ai.

Following the monographs by STRAUB (1924) and LENDLE (1935), this is the third contribution to the "e;Pharmacology of Cardiac Glycosides"e; within the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, which was founded by ARTHUR HEFFTER and con- tinued by WOLFGANG HEUBNER.

The purpose of the present volume, the first of two on the pharmacology, biochemistry, and physiology of cyclic nucleotides, is to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date anthology on the nature and role of these important chemical regulators.

Pharmacological and clinical research on nitrates continues to be of growing interest in many centers.

It is with great pleasure and ,much interest that I accepted to write the foreword to this book by Paul Doury, Yves Dirheimer, and Serge Pattin on the subject of "e;algodystrophy.

From a logical point of view, cell division is regulated by the environment and by the ability of the cell to respond to the environmental signals.

The description of the pharmacology of psychotomimetics, cannabis, and alcohol in this third volume concludes the discussion on psychotropic agents.

This second volume continues the description of the psychotropic agents and discusses anxiolytics, gerontopsychopharmacological agents, and psychomotor stimulants.

The Series on Antibiotics produced by Springer-Verlag began more than a decade ago with the nearly simultaneous appearance of two volumes, one dealing with the mode of action of antibiotics and the other concerning the biosynthesis of them.

The volumes on "e;psychotropic substances"e; in the Handbook of Experimental Phar- macology series clearly show that the classical concept of this discipline has become too narrow in recent years.