The Department of Pharmacology Publications are divided into two series: Unit Publications and Topical Publications.
The Unit Publications series contains brochures from the department, a directory of the faculty, and two issues of the Newsletter from 1990 and 1991. The department celebrated its centennial in 1991, and this series contains a program of the festivities, as well as a history written for the occasion by Henry H. Swain.
The Topical Publications series contains a development brochure published circa 1990.
Prior to the introduction of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan, instruction in the uses and dosage of drugs was given under the heading of Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Practicing physicians taught the discipline from the opening of the University's Department of Medicine and Surgery in 1850, until 1891 when a trained scientific pharmacologist--Dr. John Jacob Abel--was appointed to teach Materia Medica. Abel only served from January of 1891 to May of 1893, but he inspired the redirection of the department from classical Materia Medica to scientific Pharmacology. However, the title of the professorship remained Materia Medica until 1942. Abel, then Arthur Robertson Cushny and Charles Wallis Edmunds were each Professors of Materia Medica and Therapeutics.
Cushny was appointed in 1893 by Victor C. Vaughan, Dean of the Department of Medicine and Surgery. Cushny, during his tenure at Michigan wrote the first English-language pharmacology textbook. It became quite popular and went through 13 editions.
Charles Wallis Edmunds worked as assistant to Cushny, and took charge of the work when Cushny moved to University College in London in 1905.
In the late 1920's the National Research Council set up a Committee on Drug Addiction which established its Pharmacology Unit at the University of Michigan under Edmunds. Nathan Browne Eddy was recruited to manage the Unit.
In 1942, the department officially adopted the title Department of Pharmacology with the appointment to the chair of Maurice H. Seevers. Seevers had for almost twenty years been researching the addictive effects of morphine, and a grant from the Committee on Drug Addiction and Narcotics enabled him to establish a colony of morphine-dependent Rhesus monkeys in order to research the dependence liability of new compounds.
Bert Nichols La Du, Jr. became Chairman in 1974. Previous to that post, which he held until 1980, he held a similar position at New York Medical School. La Du continued to teach in the department until his retirement in 1989, and he remained a funded investigator after that time as Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology.
Raymond W. Ruddon served as chairman from 1981 until 1990. During his tenure, research support for the department increased almost three-fold, to make it ranked first in funding among pharmacology departments in public medical schools.
The current chair of the department is Paul F. Hollenberg.
Chairs of the Department of Pharmacology
| Date |
Event |
| 1942-1971 | Maurice Seevers |
| 1971-1973 | Henry H. Swain (Acting) |
| 1974-1980 | Bert Nichols La Du |
| 1981-1990 | Raymond Ruddon |
| 1991-2016 | Paul F. Hollenberg |
| 2016- | Lori L. Isom |
