远在公元前2735年,我们的祖先就开始采用未经“实验室”设计出来的新药。十七世纪,美洲印地安人也懂得用金鸡纳树皮治疗疟疾。十九世纪,化学家们就能从药用植物提取药物,并研究其成分。这是一个重大的突破,由于知道了这种药的性能,人们就可以设法在实验室里制造。随着研究的不断深入,化学家们对原子是如何结合为分子,分子又是如何结合为别的分子的,也了解得更多了。还有一些科学家,又研究了药物是如何在人体内起作用的。他们甚至通过非常熟练的方法把小得看 As early as 2735 BC, our ancestors began to use new drugs that were not designed in “laboratories.” In the seventeenth century, Native Americans also learned to treat malaria with cinchona bark. In the 19th century, chemists were able to extract drugs from medicinal plants and study their composition. This is a major breakthrough that people can try to create in the lab because of the properties of the drug. As research progressed, chemists learned more about how atoms are combined into molecules and how molecules are combined into other molecules. Still other scientists study how drugs work in the body. They look good even through very skilled methods