Pharmacology is the study of drugs and their interaction with living systems. It includes the properties, effects, and mechanisms of drugs. The document outlines several subdivisions of pharmacology including pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacotherapy, and toxicology. It also discusses the history of pharmacology from ancient civilizations discovering medicinal plants to the modern establishment of the discipline in the late 19th century. Key events in the modernization of pharmacology included the isolation of the first pure drug, morphine, in 1805 and the founding of early pharmacology departments and journals in the late 1800s.