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Drug:
Drug:
A chemical used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of disease. More generally, a chemical, which, in a solution of sufficient concentration, will modify the behavior of cells exposed to the solution. Drugs produce only quantitative changes in the behavior of cells; i.e., drugs increase or decrease the magnitude, frequency, of duration of the normal activities of cells. Drugs used in therapy never produce qualitative changes in cell behavior short of producing death of the cell, e.g., a nerve cell cannot be made to contract or a muscle cell cannot be made to secrete saliva by use of a drug. The degree to which this point of view will be modified by the discovery and development of agents which act on cells at a genetic level remains to be seen.
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