This book is for students, doctors and indeed for all concerned with evidence-based drug therapy. A knowledge of pharmacological and therapeutic principles is essential if drugs/medicines are to be used safely and effectively for increasingly informed and critical patients. Doctors who understand how drugs get into the body, how they produce their effects, what happens to them in the body, and how evidence of their therapeutic effect is assessed, will choose drugs more skilfully, and use them more successfully than those who do not. The principles involved are neither so numerous nor so difficult to understand as to deter any prescriber, including those whose primary interests lie elsewhere than in pharmacology. All who use drugs cannot escape either the moral or the legal 'duty of care' to prescribe in an informed and responsible way.

本书专供学生、医师，尤其是那些对循证药物治疗感兴趣的人使用。如果要做到对知情且危重的患者安全有效的用药，具有主要的药理学和治疗学知识是必须的。了解药物是如何进入体内、如何产生作用、患者体内都发生了什么以及何种证据可用来评估其治疗是有效的医师将比那些对以上内容不甚了解的医师更熟练和成功的选择药物。其中涉及的主要原则既不太多也不太难，不会耽误医师开处方，这也包括那些对药理学感兴趣的人。所有使用药物者均无法以一种了解且负责的方式开药而逃避道德或法律的“护理责任”。

"I highly recommend that this much needed, updated edition of this clinical pharmacology textbook be added to the evidence-based resource library of every individual prescribing drugs." ----Doody Enterprises, DOODY'S BOOK REVIEW SERVICE UPDATE. September 2008

* Introductory first three sections cover general principle of clinical pharmacology; five subsequent sections cover drug treatment of disease organised by body system * Retains approachable style set by the original author, Professor Laurence * Emphasis throughout is on evidence-based and safe drug prescribing

* New colour design * Increased use of graphics * Slightly shorter by removal of out of date material