the beginning, medicinal therapy consisteodf concoctions coadministered with incantations. Little thought was given to dissecting out the contributions of the pharmacology of the concoction from the spiritual consequences of the incantations. Eventually, potions and extracts were recognized to have predictable activity that could be observed and described objectively. Then came the capacity to estimate potency,t o l eading concentration and purification. And finally came chemical identification and synthesis and the currently fashionable demand that a modern medicament must be a pure single chemical entity. With synthesis replacing nature, the chemical aspeocf t pharmaceutical scienceh ad gone as far as it could go-or had it?.
