ScoopMed

Allopathy The modern medicine is wrongly termed as Allopathy by many. The term Allopathy stands for "the other suffering". The term was coined when the likes of James Gregory were doing irrational treatment which consisted of using high doses which created a new suffering which was far worse than the initial suffering. Modern medicine is thoroughly rational and aims at reducing the initial suffering without causing additional suffering. Drug The word "Drug" has its origin from French; drug = drogue; a dry herb. Many of us have a misconception that drugs prescribed are usually synthetic and are non natural products. Many of the drugs and the word drug itself has it's origin in herbs. The difference now is we know the exact active ingredient and it's action. Drugs are now highly specific in action and are introduced based on valid experimentation.

Paul Ehrlich's obsession about using dyes for treating diseases culminated into the creation of product called arsphenamine. Arsphenamine, though too toxic was used to treat Syphilis as no other drug existed then. The product was patented as Salvarsan - touted to be a salvation for all human sufferings. The Salvarsan points at the era of beginning of systematic approach at discovering drugs. Next came an another dye, prontosil, by Gerhard Domagk which essentially began the era of chemotherapy.