III. Supplement

Text A

1. Read, translate and discuss the following text. Be ready to speak about the effectiveness and medicinal uses of licorice.

DRUGS: OBTAINING, NAMES AND STANDARDS

Drugs are chemical substances used in medicine in the cure, treatment, or prevention of disease in man and animals. In addition drugs alleviate suffering and pain. They affect living protoplasm and do not act as a food. These chemical substances can come from many different sources. Drugs are obtained from various parts of plants, such as the roots, leaves and fruit. Examples of such tlrugs are digitalis (from the foxglove plant), and antibiotics such as penicillin and streptomycin (from plants called molds).

Drugs can also be obtained from animals; for example, hormones and secretions from glands of animals. Drugs can be made from chemical substances which are synthesized in the laboratory. Anti-cancer drugs, such as methtrexate and prednisone are examples of laboratory-synthesized drugs. Some drugs are contained in food substances; these drugs are called vitamins.

A drug can have three different names. The chemical name is the chemical formular for the drug. This name is often long and complicated. The generic or official name is a shorter, less complicated name which is recognized as identifying the drug for legal and scientific purpose. The generic name is public property and any drug manufacture may use it. There is only one generic name for each drug.

The brand name or trade name is the private property of the individual drug manufacturer and no competitor may use it. Brand names often have the superscript after or be­fore the name. Most drugs have several brand names be­cause each manufacturer producing the drug gives it a dif­ferent name. When a specific brand name is ordered on a prescription by a physician, it must be dispensed by the pharmacist; no other brand name may be substituted. It is common practice to capitalize the first letter of a brand name.

The following list gives the chemical, generic, and brand names of the well-known antibiotic drug ampicillin. Note that the drug can have several brand names, but only one generic, or official name.

2. Chemical name generic name brand name

alpha-amino- ampicilline Amcill capsules

benzyl P Omnipen

Penbritin Polycillin Principen/N

Standards. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the legal responsibility for deciding whether a drug may be distributed and sold, there are definite stan­dards for drugs set by an independent committee of physi­cians, pharmacologists, pharmacists, and manufactures. This committee is called the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Two important standards of the USP are that the drug must be clinically useful (useful for patients) and available in pure form (made by good manufacturing methods). If a drug has USP after his name, it has met with standards of the Pharmacopeia. A list of drugs is published by the USP every 5 years but not all drugs are listed in it. The National Formulary (NF) is a larger list of drugs which meet purity standards. The letters USP and NF after a drug indicate that the manufacturer claims his product conforms to USP or NF standards. It is up to the FDA to inspect and enforce the claims of drug manufactures.

Drugs may be classified according to a) their morpholo­gy; b) the taxonomy of the plants and animals from which they are obtained; c) their therapeutic applications; d) their chemical constituents. Each of these methods of classification has advantages and disadvantages.