LAUSR

(When Coleridge wrote those lines published in 1799, he was thinking about a beloved person close to him and not pharmacology. Almost certainly.) Collective names for drugs were coined for various reasons, some of which we would now recognise as misguided. For many groups of drugs, the molecular mechanism/s of action were initially obscure and so an interpretation of their clinical impact was often adopted. When drugs in such groups undergo a change in use, the previous nomenclature provides a layer of unnecessary confusion. Older nomenclature can lead to preconceptions about drug action, for example, referring to daunorubicin (daumomycin) as an antibiotic, when the clinical usage is for treating cancer. Or the use of particular ‘antidepressants’ for treating chronic neuropathic pain. At a linguistic level, using the term ‘antibiotic’ to describe the drugs used to treat bacterial infection is clearly a misnomer (Seifert & Schirmer, 2021a). At a pharmacological level, the use of the prefix antias an indication of a drug that interferes with a particular process is also best avoided. The term anticholinergic, for example, has been imprecise since Henry Hallett Dale's identification in the 1910s of atropine-insensitive effects of acetylcholine (Feldberg, 1970). Similarly, anti-adrenergic, anti-oestrogen, antihistamine and so on are all similarly too imprecise and are, therefore, to be discouraged. The rational terminologies for drug classes we describe in this Perspective (Table 1), which follows on from publications in other resources (Seifert, 2018; Seifert & Schirmer, 2021b), focus on the predominant molecular mechanism of action. We anticipate several benefits for adopting this rational terminology, beyond satisfying a need to be correct and consistent in nomenclature. Literature searches will be simplified and the teaching of pharmacology to healthcare professionals becomes more transparent to allow (for example) greater clarity about the possibility of drug : drug interactions (drug safety). Using a more rational nomenclature should also provide clarity in discussions with the general public as there is a wider drive to informing oneself.