Connections between physiology, ecology, and pharmacology. At best the distinction between an organism’s physiology and its overall ecology can be ambiguous, though with body-pharmaceutical interactions representing one aspect of their interface. Such chemicals specifically can be viewed as abiotic components of an organism’s environment, ones that have made contact with an organism’s tissue, as can also toxins. Shown are body interactions not just with self (as body) but with nonself as well (as environment), with emphasis in physiology on the impact of these interactions on the functioning of self. Ecology also is the study of interactions between self and nonself, but with the consequences of such interactions considered with emphasis on both self, as body, and nonself, as environment. Pharmacology too is the study of interactions between self and nonself (particularly “environment-to-self”), though as with physiology there is an emphasis on impact on self (again, as body).
