Drug classification activities of the American Medical Association
Philip G. Seitner · American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy · 1966
Drug classification presents two, distinct sets of problems. The first involves the classification categories themselves (definitions, names and interrelationships); the second is concerned with the assignment of individual drugs to those categories (i.e., application of the category descriptors to individual drugs). Classification is possible when common relationships exist according to which subjects make natural assemblies. Construction of a successful classification must be made on a single primary basis as, for example, total biological and chemical classifications are founded on one character alone, structure. Many drug classification schemes have been described as being pharmacologic (pharmacodynamic) or therapeutic (pharmacotherapeutic). However, both pharmacologic and therapeutic schemes must resort to other convenient criteria for subsidiary classification: anatomical, chemical, source, therapeutic use, pharmacologic action, etc. This subsidiary classification, in particular, will be found to vary between different schemes devised by different persons or for different purposes! and with different perspectives. Once decisions have been made about the classification scheme so that the most practical structure has been achieved in terms of class concepts, a choice must be made between verbal or code descriptors for those concepts, whichever is most practical for a given set of conditions and documentation equipment. In some instances, the choice would seem to reduce to a matter of personal preference, since the control that has to be established for either is about the same. The character of a code for drug classes is also a matter that is relatively easily settled by coordinating the various determinants: the maximum number of levels in the completed classification structure, the number of items at each of those levels, and limitations of any mechanism for handling symbols assigned to those levels.