Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

3. 1736 Frederich Hoffmann wrote three pamphlets:
‘Unwise medication as a cause of many diseases and death;
On the misuse and the damage arising from the application of the
mild medicaments:
‘Ordinary errors in the application of local remedies in practice.’
4. A series of dissertations in Latin from Halle all dealing with
iatrogenic disease: Zweifel in 1701, Curtius in1714, Langguth in
1739, Kühnein 1763, Zeys in 1772, Schlenther in 1777, J Ch
WJunker in 1791 and J Ch Reil in 1799.
5. 1788 J Lenhardt ‘Medicaments without mask’ (Ackerknecht,
1973).
6. 1802 Curt Sprengel ‘Handbook of Pathology’.
1722 Thomas Nettleton suggested the best method for testing the
effectiveness of variolation (inoculation) against small-pox would be
compare the mortality of smallpox and that of those inoculated. Of
the 3,405 cases, he collected from the surrounding towns, of natural
smallpox 636 died, whereas there were no deaths in the 60 patients
he had inoculated (Boylston, 2008; Nettleton, 1724). An early cohort
study.
1723 ‘The practice of salivating shewn to be of no use or efficacy in the
cure of the venereal disease, but greatly prejudicial thereto, or, The
antivenereal virtue of mercury proved to be independent of any
salival evacuation.’ by M. Chicoyneau ... Illustrated with notes and
observations; and confirm’d with instances of the success of this
method in England by C. Willoughby. London: J. Roberts, 1723.’
Whereas it is apparent that most physicians used salivation as a
marker for the correct dose, because they presumed the saliva
washed out the syphilitic agent.
1725 Freind, John, 1675–1728, ‘The history of physick; from the time of
Galen, to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Chiefly with regard
to practice; in a discourse written to Dr Mead (London: Printed for J.
Walthoe, jun. 1725). : Printed for J. Walthoe, jun. 1725).’ He was
physician to the Hanoverian Court, yet imprisoned for his Jacobite
sympathies; Freind exerted a significant impact on contemporary
medical theory and practice. There was no mention of the adverse
effects of drugs. This was the first history of medicine.
Mercury: ‘As to mercurial unction he condemned it as pernicious
and takes notice how many persons General Quack had killed by
this practice.’
Hellebore alba: ‘ And even as to purges, tho’ white hellebore be