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Definition

Pharmacotherapy is the use of medicine in the treatment of diseases, conditions, and symptoms.

Description

History of pharmacotherapy

Pharmacotherapy is not a contemporary science. The use of drugs to treat illness is a practice that has been accepted for thousands of years. A famous example is Hippocrates, who is generally credited with revolutionizing medicine in ancient Greece by using beneficial drugs to heal illness. Traditionally, plants have been the source of medicinal drugs, but modern day medicine in the United States mostly utilizes synthesized or purified bioactive compounds, rather than an entire sample of plant matter. The advantage to this method of pharmacotherapy is that the dose of medicine rendered is standardized and pure, rather than an unknown drug dosage administered in addition to a wide variety of other chemicals present in the plant. Modern pharmacotherapy is the most...