The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics

Upon learning that I was assuming the editorship of this book, a senior colleague warned, “Be careful. Don’t tamper lightly with the bible.” This reputation of “G & G” as the “bible of pharmacology” is a tribute to the ideals and writing of the original authors, Alfred Gilman and Louis Goodman. In 1941, they set forth the principles that have guided this book through ten prior editions and that the associate editors and I have continued to use: to correlate pharmacology with related medical sciences, to reinterpret the actions and uses of drugs in light of advances in medicine and the basic biomedical sciences, to emphasize the applications of pharmacodynamics to therapeutics, and to create a book that will be useful to students of pharmacology and physicians alike.