Drugs and Medicines

 Contents

• Definition
• Difference betweens drugs and medicines

Definition :

Drugs : A chemical substance other than food that is intended for used in diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease, or is intended to affect the structure or any function of the body. 

A substance recognised by an official pharmacopia or formulary.

A drug is a chemical substance that takes control of your body or mind depending on its own inherent nature. For example when you take a sleeping pill, it puts you to sleep no matter how much you want to be awake, it rules over your body and mind. It will remains the same when you repeat this exercise many times. 

Painkillers works in same way. They do not resolve the cause of pain, it temporarily makes you forget the pain. Pain will recur shortly as the cause has not been addressed and remains unresolved.

Medicines : A chemical substance that is used in treating disease and relieving pain. Usually has a positive effect on the health , not associated with negative connotations.           It is the substance that helps restrore 'normalcy' to your body and mind which means nothing but your volitional control over your own body and mind. Hence its action is totally opposite to drugs.

These days, medicines come from a variety of sources. Many were developed from substances found in nature, and even today many are extracted from plants.

Some medicines are made in labs by mixing together a number of chemicals. Others, like penicillin, are byproducts of organisms such as fungus. And a few are even biologically engineered by inserting genes into bacteria that make them produce the desired substance.

Difference between drugs and medicines :

Drugs and Medicines are the two similar words and can be used as synonyms for each other. Most of persons get confused while differentiating between these. 

Here we are going to find out the difference between Drugs and Medicines :

NOTE: All medicines are drugs but all drugs are not medicines.

Drugs and medicines are substances that result in a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body. The physiological effect caused by drugs have different uses and purposes. However, the effects of medicine are often positive and favourable since the main purpose of medicine is treating diseases. This is main difference between drugs and medicines 

Medicines are more safe to use because these have negligible toxicity and do not cause addiction. Example : penicillin is called a medicine since it doesnot have addiction properties while heroin is called as drug because of its pronounced habit forming and addictive properties.

Tags: drugs, medicines, painkillers, pharmacopia, good health

Categories: Basic Healthcare