Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics in the UK – a great instauration

Abstract

In a letter to his unhelpful uncle, Lord Burghley, in 1592 Francis Bacon outlined a plan. He wanted to bring about a reorganization of learning, which had languished during the Middle Ages and beyond, despite Roger Bacon's recognition, in his Opus Maius of 1267, of the importance of experimental science, mathematics, and language. The latter-day Bacon constructed his plan as a programme that he called Instauratio Magna, a Great Instauration, which was also the title he gave to a preliminary description of it, published in 1620 and dedicated to King James (Figure 1). Bacon's ‘grand edifice’ had seven strands: Figure 1 The title page of Francis Bacon's Instauratio Magna (1620) Introductory principles Classification of sciences Scientific methods Experimentation Historical survey of scientific developments Foresight of scientific developments Practical applications to ensure the betterment of mankind. The time was ripe for change. The words ‘pathology’ and ‘physiology’ had just entered the English language, and ‘therapeutics’ and ‘pharmacology’ were soon to do so [1]. Bacon began his never-to-be-completed campaign with a book called The Advancement of Learning (1605), a preliminary version of a longer Latin text De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), in which he described the decline of scientific method, reviewing the weaknesses of academics and universities, a current lack of scientific collaboration, and the neglect of science by governments. This book was an introduction to Bacon's major work, the Novum Organum (1620), in which he reaffirmed the importance of experimentation and outlined the inductive method of reasoning. Bacon's last book, The New Atlantis (1627), was a utopian fable, in which he imagined a paternalistic government, supporting science through the establishment of a Royal College of Research, and predicted numerous inventions and techniques, such as aircraft and submarines, telephony and refrigeration. It was while undertaking experiments in the last of these that he died from an affection acquired while stuffing a fowl with snow. Through this fragmentary body of work, Bacon earned the title ‘high priest of modern science’. His plan was a grandiose one, intended to culminate in a kind of earthly paradise through the instauration, or restoration, of scientific learning and method. Although some of the above account has strong contemporary resonances, it would be excessive to claim that one of the main current aims of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) – to restore Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CPT) as a scientific and practical discipline in the UK – is as exalted as Bacon's intentions were. It is nevertheless true that we are currently experiencing an exciting period of instauration or, as others have called it [2], a renaissance.