Toxicology can be defined as the study of the adverse effects of chemicals, pharmaceutical chemicals or any other physical agents on living organisms. Adverse effects may occur in many forms, ranging from immediate death to subtle changes not realized until months or years later. They may occur at various levels within the body, from cellular level to organ level and can affect the organism or sometimes a specific biochemical. The safety evaluation of pharma products involves evaluation for the risk that a drug can pose to animals and man with respect to normal physiological function and reproductive performance. Drug safety and efficacy testing are essential for new pharma drugs, biological, herbal and natural remedies, nutraceuticals and probiotic food products, and select cosmetics before they are introduced in the market.

The study of action and properties of medicinal agents, often derived from plants, indigenous to population or ethnic groups. Ethnopharmacology is an amalgam of perspectives, primarily those of pharmacology, pharmacognosy, anthropology, and botany. Ethnopharmacology has contributed to the discovery of many important plant-derived drugs. Herbalism when combined with phytochemistry and ethnopharmacology is a powerful means for drug discovery. Ethnopharmacology is restricted to natural products used in a traditional context.

Nursing pharmacology helps nurses to understand how drugs work in the body.  They enable them to understand the therapeutic effects, anticipate and recognize the potential side effects or toxicities of the drugs administered by the patients. In drug therapy today, nurses, together with physicians and pharmacists, participate in a system of checks and balances designed to promote beneficial effects and minimize harm. Nurses are especially important in this system because it is the nurse—not the physician or pharmacist—who follows the patient’s status most closely.

Genetic toxicology helps to discern the possibility of heritable mutations, developmental defects, cancer initiation, aging, and other long-term adverse genetic effects. Genotoxicity describes the assets of chemical sellers that damage the genetic records inside cellular causing mutations, which may lead to most cancers. At the same time, genotoxicity is often stressed with mutagenicity; all mutagens are genotoxic, while no longer all genotoxic materials are mutagenic. The alteration could have direct or indirect consequences at the DNA: the induction of mutations mistimed occasion activation, and direct DNA damage leading to mutations.

Reverse pharmacology includes drug screening deals with reverse pharmacology and forward pharmacology are two approaches to drug discovery. Target based drug discovery is the process through which potential new medicines are identified. It involves a wide range of scientific disciplines, including biology, chemistry and pharmacology, screening of chemical libraries and its pharmacology, methods to determine biological targeting, by systematically perturbing and interrogating biological pathways with synthetically novel chemical tools, preclinical validation of target biology is beginning to illuminate a more cost-effective and efficient paradigm for the development of novel drugs modulating novel targets.

Cardio pharmacodynamics of digitalis is most frequently used to increase the adequacy of the circulation in patients with CCF and to slow the ventricular rate in patients with atrial fibrillation or flutter NB: the main action of digitalis is its ability to increase myocardial contractility its positive isotropic action results in, a. increased cardiac output, b. decreased heart size, c. decreased venous pressure, d. decreased circulating blood volume. e. neural tissue being responsible for indirect cardiac actions of the drug finally, changes to the circulation brought about by digitalis frequently result in reflex autonomic & hormonal changes which affect the CVS. Role of drugs in coronary circulation the circulatory system is busy providing oxygen and nourishment to every cell of the body, let's not forget that the heart, which works hardest of all, needs nourishment. Ethnopharmacology is to identify the objectives of a largely virtual field whose self-identified membership represents a diverse suite of academic and applied disciplines, as well as commercial interests. Integrative Pharmacological Investigations include conglomeration of more number of pharmacological aspects and aggregated scientific research of two or more drugs. Natural products of chemistry in drug discovery play a vital role in bringing advances in traditional drug treatments. Chemistry and structural elucidation of drugs accelerate potential treatment options in the evolving developmental changes.