Pills, Potions, and Poisons: How Drugs Work. This item is unavailable.Pills, Potions, and Poisons: How Drugs Work

About half of all the medicines prescribed by doctors are not taken by their patients. One of the reasons most commonly given by patients for not taking drugs is that they feel unhappy about taking medicines which they do not understand and of which they are afraid. This book attempts to rectify this problem by showing in clear, non-technical language how medicines and other drugs work in the body to reduce the effects of disease. Most chapters include fascinating background information on how some of our most important drugs were discovered, along with intriguing and often amusing anecdotes about the drugs and the people behind their discovery. Each chapter also includes a summary of the key points together with illustrations, photographs or diagrams to summarise the main groups and how they work in the body. The book covers all the major groups of drugs, with complete listings of all the drugs available in the UK and the USA, so that the reader can locate his or her specific drug and read about the actions of the drugs in that group. The various chapters cover drugs used to treat high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, ulcers, cancers, infections, impotence, incontinence, arthritis, osteoporosis, as well as hormone replacement therapy, oral contraceptives and drugs used in disorders of the brain such as schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy. There is also a chapter on drugs which are abused such as cannabis, alcohol, nicotine and ecstasy, and a chapter covering some of the poisons we encounter, such as carbon monoxide, arsenic, sheep dip, and the venoms of snakes, spiders, scorpions and marine organisms. Here, then, a fascinating survey of how chemicals have their effects in the body. It shows how drugs work and explains why it is that taking some medicines for many years is far safer than suffering the long-term effects of disease. Pills, Potions and Poisons is an entertaining read that should also help to improve your health and quality of life.

From barbiturates to Bacardi Breezers, from antibiotics to Earl Grey tea, human beings depend on drugs to an extraordinary degree: whether it's cancer, boredom, frigidity or shyness, we snort, drink, pop, smoke and inject to cure or alleviate the ills of existence. Without drugs life would be unimaginably different--and unimaginably painful.

Given this universal drug culture, a book which attempts to explain the whats, whys and wherefores of the thousands of drugs we use can only be timely and helpful. But professional physicians and pharmacologists Stone and Darlington have also striven to make their text stimulating and enjoyable--and to a large extent they have succeeded.

The format is simple. It takes the reader through the pharmacopoeia illness by illness, with attendant, rigorously scientific, but never obscure explanations as to the provenance, virtues and side-effects of the relevant medication. The historical and ancillary material deftly woven into the text is sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious. Dominant male chimps enjoy a natural 'mental' Prozac; Queen Victoria's doctor thought epilepsy was caused by masturbation; eighty years ago kits of morphine and syringes could be bought at stores as 'a useful present'. Between these fascinating asides the authors discuss issues like schizophrenia, heart disease and depression--all of which have seen revolutions in the pharmacological treatment available in the last few years.

After several chapters on recreational drugs, toxicology, and "aphrodisiacs", the book culminates with a short but perceptive essay on the development and marketing of new drugs--such as tolcapone. Tolcapone seems to offer exciting possibilities in the treatment of Parkinsonism, but it also causes, in some, liver damage. The book's clear-headed analysis of this complex dilemma exemplifies why Pills, Potions and Poisons will be of value to anyone who has ever taken drugs. Which, of course, means everyone.--Sean Thomas