Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

White Ellebore, or Hellebore, in Latin ‘Helleborus albus’.
‘The root of white hellebore, which is only in use in physick, purges
very violently upward and downward; yet it may be used, says
Tragus 123 , being infus’d twenty four hours in wine or oxymel, and
afterwards dried: half a dram of it, so prepar’d, may be given in wine
to mad and melancholy people. But either of the hellebores, says
Gesner 124 , may be used inoffensively, being boiled to a syrup with
honey and vinegar; and are very useful for many phlegmatic
diseases, especially of the breast and head; as, an asthma, difficulty
of breathing, and the falling sickness. They wonderfully purge the
belly, the urine, and all the passages. In the use of white hellebore
two things are chiefly to be minded: First, that the diseases are very
obstinate: and secondly, that the patient has sufficient strength to
bear the operation. Wherefore the root ought not to be given to old
men, women, or children, or to such as are weakly, and costive in the
body: and the hellebore ought to be well prepar’d. The old way of
giving of it was, with horse-radish, which they used three ways; for,
either they stuck the roots into horse-radish, and continu’d them in it
twenty four hours; and afterwards, the roots being taken out, they
gave the horse-radish: Or they infus’d the horse-radish, stuck with
the roots, in oxymel, in B.M 125 . and gave only the oxymel: or, they left
the horse-radish so prepar’d all night, and in the morning infus’d it in
oxymel, having first cast away the hellebore; and then they gave the
oxymel. But Parkinson 126 says, the best way of preparing it is, to
infuse it in the juice of quinces; or to roast it under ashes, in a quince.
If, upon taking hellebore, there is danger of suffocation, the eating of
quinces, or the taking the juice or syrup of it, is a present.’
1694 Frederick Dekker described the effect of heat and acetic acid on
certain types of urine, e.g. produced a ‘caseous part’ presumably
albumen (Dekker, 1694; Dock, 1922).
1697 First dispensary opened in the premises of the Royal College of
Physicians in Warwick Lane, London, where the poor were offered
free consultation and advice, and prescribed drugs dispensed from a
special stock. Branches were opened later in other parts of the City.
123 Tragus = Hieronymus Bock (1498-1554)
124 Gesner = Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) a humanist bibliographer
125 B.M. = Balneum Mariae = hot water
126 Parkinson = John Parkinson (1567-1650) Apothecary to James I and James VI (see entry for 1640 AD)