Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

or the dominions beyond thereof.’ No mention of ADRs. It still
mentions ’Mithridatum’, but now it only has 44 ingredients.
1619 ‘A new herbal, or history of plants wherein is contained the whole
discourse and perfect description of all sorts of herbs and plants:
their divers and sundry kinds, their names, natures, operations, and
vertues: and that not only of those which are here growing in this our
country of England [sic], but of all others also of foreign realms
commonly used in physick. First set forth in the Dutch or Almaigne
(German) tongue, by that learned D. Rembert Dodoens, physician to
the Emperor: and now first translated out of French into English, by
Henry Lyte Esquire. Imprinted at London: By Edward Griffin, 1619’.
564 pages.
For all the drugs there is a section for their ‘vertues’ and also for
many there is also a section ‘Dangers’ such as:
Black Hellebore: ‘Although black hellebore is not so vehment as
the white, yet it cannot be given without danger, and especially to
people that have their health: for as Hippocrates saith, Carnes
habentibus sanas, Helleborus periculsus, facie enim Convulsions,
that is to say, to such as be whole, hellebore is very perilous, for it
causes shrinking of sinues: therefore hellebore may not be
ministered, except in desperate causes, and that to young & strong
people, and not at all times, but in the spring time only, yet ought it
not to be given before it be prepared and corrected.’
Poppy: he used identical words to those used by Dodoens in 1586.
Black Henbane: ‘The leaves, seed, and …. Of Henbane, but
especially of the black Henbane, the which is very common in this
country, teken either alone or with wine, causes raging, and long
deep sleep, almost like unto drunkenness, which remains a long
space and afterwards killeth the party.’ (http://0-
eebo.chadwyck.com.libsys.wellcome.ac.uk/works/search?action=se
archorbrowse&search=viewselectedrecords&somtype=viewselrecs).
1624 Already in 1624 Wihelm Fabry alias Fabricius Hildanus (1560–1634)
had clearly expressed in letters his disappointment at the
confrontations with all the ‘pseudo-chemists’ that administered potent
substances imprudently without bothering about the toxic effects that
could have arisen in the patients. Hildanus, apart from pointing out
some cases of death occurring immediately after taking a drug, acutely
observed that the toxicity of some substances could manifest
themselves a long time after their administration, at times with fatal
outcomes. The battle against the abuse and the bad use of