Gerald Pöch

The rapid growth of the world population - nearly six-fold over the last hundred years - combined with the rising number of technical installations especially in the industrialized countries has lead to ever tighter and more strained living spaces on our planet. Because ofthe inevitable processes oflife, man was at first an exploiter rather than a careful preserver of the environment. Environmental awareness with the intention to conserve the environment has grown only in the last few decades. Environmental standards have been defined and limit values have been set largely guided, however, by scientific and medical data on single exposures, while public opinion, on the other hand, now increasingly calls for astronger consideration of the more complex situations following combined exposures. Furthermore, it turned out that environmental standards, while necessarily based on scientific data, must also take into account ethical, legal, economic, and sociological aspects. A task of such complexity can only be dealt with appropriately in the framework of an inter­ disciplinary group.

The rapid growth of the world population - nearly six-fold over the last hundred years - combined with the rising number of technical installations especially in the industrialized countries has lead to ever tighter and more strained living spaces on our planet. Because ofthe inevitable processes oflife, man was at first an exploiter rather than a careful preserver of the environment. Environmental awareness with the intention to conserve the environment has grown only in the last few decades. Environmental standards have been defined and limit values have been set largely guided, however, by scientific and medical data on single exposures, while public opinion, on the other hand, now increasingly calls for astronger consideration of the more complex situations following combined exposures. Furthermore, it turned out that environmental standards, while necessarily based on scientific data, must also take into account ethical, legal, economic, and sociological aspects. A task of such complexity can only be dealt with appropriately in the framework of an inter­ disciplinary group.

Scientists struggling with the pharmaco- and toxicodynamic interactions of drugs and chemicals will find this book a valuable reference to the relevant theoretical background of this complex field and an indispensible guide to practical, analytical procedures for evaluation of experimental data. A new, straightforward mechanistically based analysis of observed combination effects is backed up by numerous examples as well as by computer-assisted plotting and curve fitting – using popular graphical software systems. The reader thus can gain not only a modern understanding of this complex area but proceed directly to the evaluation of his own dose-response experiments with respect to independent actions, and additive interactions, where appropriate. The meanings of terms and acronyms in the literature, most of them used in this book also, are elucidated by a comprehensive glossary. This book represents a modern, theoretical and practical guide for all scientists dealing with this controversial and complex area of the action and interaction of drugs and chemicals.