PHARMACOLOGIC BASIS OF CARDIAC THERAPY

Abstract

I have planned to present an account of pharmacologic studies which have a more or less direct bearing on problems of cardiac therapy. I shall confine my remarks, for the most part, to explorations in this field which have been made in recent years by a group of collaborators in our laboratory and clinics.¹ These relate chiefly to investigations made directly on human subjects. The term "clinical study" doesn't rate very high in scientific circles. The belief prevails that the search for facts on drug action in man directly is of necessity inexact, subject to the impressions and prejudices of the observer and not amenable to the strict control of the animal experiment. There are, to be sure, many problems in pharmacology which are inaccessible to study directly on the human subject, but there is a vast area of pharmacologic investigation which may be developed with the human subject