Pharmacology is a biomedical art.
Pharmacology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of drug action , where a drug can be broadly defined as any man-made , natural , or endogenous ( from within body ) molecule which exerts a biochemical or physiological effect on the cell , tissue , organ , or organism ( sometimes the word pharmacon is used as a term to encompass these endogenous and exogenous bioactive species ) . Pharmacology , a biomedical science , deals with the research , discovery , and characterization of chemicals which show biological effects and the elucidation of cellular and organismal function in relation to these chemicals . Pharmacology as a scientific discipline did not further advance until the mid-19th century amid the great biomedical resurgence of that period . Pharmacology developed in the 19th century as a biomedical science that applied the principles of scientific experimentation to therapeutic contexts .