Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

ut it would not become generally used until the turn of the century.
1761 William Lewis (1708–1781) wrote ‘Experimental history of the
materia medica’ London, H Baldwin for the author & R Willcock,
1761.
Hellebore Nigra: ‘very strongly, though not very violently cathartic.’
Hellebore alba: ‘violently sternatory operating with great violence
both upwards and downwards. Has sometimes brought on
convulsions and other terrible symptoms. It affects the tongue,
produces a strangulation and suffocates with extreme anxiety.’
Hyoscyamus niger: ‘mighty narcotic, violent disorder of the senses,
sometimes fatal.’
1763 ‘An essay on the internal use of thorn-apple, Henbane and
monkshood’ by Anton Störck, Vienna (1731–1803).
Thorn-apple: ‘highly noxious to man and beast’… disagreeable
taste. Disorders the mind, causes madness, destroys ones ideas and
memory and occasions convulsions.’
Henbane: Most authors forbid the internal use of it. He gave it to
dogs–pupils dilated, staggered, trembled, very weak, sight almost
gone, vomited three times and stools open 5 times. He treated 13
patients and reported the effects: middling dose–pupils dilated,
languor, eyes open, staggered, anxiety in sleep. Case II chilliness
and shivering all over the body, with anxiety, a cold sweat, weakness
of sight and a sense of beginning fainting fit. Case IV unquenchable
thirst and colicky pains.
He conducted animal experiments with some traditional herbs,
eventually trying them on himself: hemlock, colchicum, thorn apple,
henbane and monkshood (Störck, 1763).
The Reverend Edward Stone wrote in the ‘Philosophical
Transactions’ that the bark of the willow tree was a successful
remedy for the agues. He added ‘It seems likewise to have this
additional quality, viz. To be a safe medicine; for I never could
perceive the least ill effect from it, though it had been always given
without any preparation of the patient’ (Stone, 1763).
‘Essay on the effects of opium as a poison with the cure’ by John
Awsiter.
The general effects of opium are as follows, viz. ‘Upon almost
immediate taking, the first symptoms are a heat, and weight at the
stomach, succeeded by an extravagance of spirits, even to violent
laughter, listlessness of the limbs, giddiness, head-ache, loss of