Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

Dose
filthy; and much more after a berry of a bright shining black colour,
and of such great beauty, as it were able to allure any such to eat
thereof.’ He also said, ‘This kind of nightshade causes sleep,
troubles the mind, brings madness if a few of the berries be inwardly
taken, but if more be given they also kill and bring present death.’
Opium: ‘It mitigates all kinds of pains: but it leaves behind it
oftentimes a mischief worse than the disease itself, and that hard to
be cured, as a dead palsy and such like.’
Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger): ‘The leaves, seed, and juice taken
inwardly cause unquiet sleep, like unto the sleep of drunkenness,
which continues long and is deadly to the party... To wash the feet in
a decoction of Henbane causes sleep, or given in a clyster it does
the same; and as also the often smelling of the flowers.’
1599 King James VI of Scotland issued a charter making provisions for the
supervision of the sales of drug and poisons. The first inspector
appointed was William Spang, who was responsible for approving
‘droggis’ (drugs) offered for sale in the city of Glasgow. Letter of Gift by
King James VI under his Privy Seal, whereby he granted full power to
the chirurgians and professors of medicine within the city of Glasgow to
examine all persons practising chirurgery, and to license such as
should be found duly qualified; prohibiting such as do not hold the
license of a university in which medicine is taught, or a license from the
chirurgians of Glasgow, from practising in the city; prohibiting the sale
of drugs in the city, except such as is sighted by the chirurgians, and
prohibiting the sale of rat poison except by the apothecaries, who
should be caution for the persons to whom the same was sold.
Holyrood, 29 November 1599. (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland,
vol. viii, p. 184) (City of Glasgow, 1897).
It was difficult to use the correct dose with herbs since there were several factors
which were unknown: there were several varieties of many herbs, their active
principles were not known, the active principles depended on when they were
harvested, where they were grown and which part of the plant was used. Then the
conditions of storage might affect the active principle. Where mixtures were used
there could be problems of interactions between the ingredients. Since many
mixtures contained powdered leaves, stalks and roots there was the possibility that
one ingredient would come to the surface and another to the bottom. One of the
purposes of the herbals, dispensatories and pharmacopoeias was to standardise
their usage. The only safe way was to titrate the dose (Huxtable, 1990). When the
margin between the therapeutic dose and the toxic dose is narrow it is said to have