The clinical pharmacologist.

THE controversy over prescribing drugs by their trade or approved names is a source of embarrassment to teachers of therapeutics like myselfwho have, for many years, taught medical students and young doctors to prescribe by approved names, leaving the choice of preparation to the pharmacist, on the assumption that 'the drug is the same'. Today we have to eat our words and recognize, in Sir Philip Rogers' words (1972/3) that 'the same constituents of a drug made up in a different way may have a different effect on the patient'. For the clincal pharmacologist in a teaching hospital, the issue may be considered from three different aspects, namely (a) clinical practice, (b) teaching, and (c) research.