Özet:

The term pharmacon has a mixed concept that means drug, poison and magic in ancient Greek. Drugs generally used for their therapeutic effect and, historically, has a positive connotation. However, all drugs have unwanted effects. These unwanted effects could be the side, adverse or abused psychotropic effects. In mythology, scenes such as Cyclops' sleep that is induced by wine and protection of Ulysses from Circe's wine, the psychotropic effects of natural substances paved the way through the development of the magic concept of pharmacon. On the other hand, as Oliver Wendell Holmes stated, concerning the Materia Medica, "If all medicines in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and the worse for the fishes," underlines the fact that drugs have also harmful effects. Nowadays, although the society focused on the therapeutic effects of the drugs, the development of pharmacovigilance that deals with unwanted and harmful effects of the drugs put more emphasis on the adverse effects of the drugs. Pharmacovigilance in a sense that "to become vigilant to harmful effects of the drugs" has not only scientific and regulatory but also philosophical projections and foundations. In this study, how the concepts that are found in the pharmacon term has changed and developed will be explained beginning from prehistorical era by giving examples from literature.

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