at a Glance
Ninth Edition
Michael J. Neal
Formerly Chairman of Pharmacology, United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital;
Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, King's College London
London, UK
This edition first published 2020
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Edition History 8e 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Neal, M. J., author.
Title: Medical pharmacology at a glance / Michael J. Neal.
Other titles: At a glance series (Oxford, England)
Description: 9th edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley‐Blackwell, 2020. | Series: At a glance series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019039398 (print) | LCCN 2019039399 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119548010 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119548058 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119548096 (epub)
Subjects: MESH: Pharmacological Phenomena | Handbook
Classification: LCC RM300 (print) | LCC RM300 (ebook) | NLM QV 39 | DDC 615.1–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039398 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039399
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © FotografiaBasica/Getty Images
Preface
This book is written primarily for medical students but it should also be useful to students and scientists in other disciplines who would like an elementary and concise introduction to pharmacology. Learning pharmacology is not easy as nearly 2000 drugs are available in Britain. Most pharmacology books are clinical and describe in detail the use of drugs for different diseases together with their various side‐effects. This inevitably tends to result in books that may seem a little daunting to students early on in their course.
This book concentrates on the mechanism of action of drugs. Each chapter is only two facing pages and its topic is centred on a diagram. The text has been reduced to a minimum for understanding the figures. Nevertheless, I have attempted in each chapter to explain how the drugs produce their effects and to outline their uses.
In this ninth edition the chapters have been updated. Certain topics have been revised, e.g antidiabetic agents, drugs used to affect blood coagulation, drugs acting on protozoa.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Professor J.M. Ritter for his advice and helpful comments on the case studies and questions. I am also grateful to Professor P. Chowienczyk for his help with the cardiovascular chapters and to Professor C. Stanford for her advice and comments on the chapters concerning drugs used in psychiatry.
Further reading
1 British National Formulary. Published jointly by BMJ Group, Tavistock Square, London and The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, London. BNF 76, September 2018—March 2019.
2 James M. Ritter, Rod J. Flower, Graeme Henderson, Yoon Kong Loke, David MacEwan, & Humphrey P. Rang (2000) Rang and Dales Pharmacology, 9th edition, Churchill, Livingstone, Edinburgh (789 pp).
3 Morris J. Brown, Pankaj Sharma, Fraz A. Mir & Peter N. Bennett (2019) Clinical Pharmacology, 12th edition Churchill, Livingstone, Edinburgh (706 pages).