Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

1780).
1781 ‘Observations on the poisonous vegetables which are indigenous in
Great Britain or cultivated for ornaments’ by B Wilmer in the London
Journal, volume 1, 1781. Concerning henbane: ‘two women became
maniacal and were so furious that strict confinement was necessary
for several days.’ Two servants had ‘uncommon agitation of the mind
and were dancing about the room with all the appearance of
maniacal persons.’ A shepherd was found staggering about a field
like a man intoxicated.
Johannes Rayoux in ‘Dissertatis Epistolaris de Cicuta,
Strammonionio, Hyoscyamus et Aconito’ [Accounts of the use of
hemlock, the thorn apple, henbane and aconite] said of henbane: ‘A
40 year old man was seized with a sense of coldness. He was
unable to stir and his pulse could hardly be felt. He complained of a
painful sensation of heat in his throat and face and his vision was
extremely confused. A weakness of sight lasted even a month after
his recovery, but he did not lose his understanding and neither was
he convulsed. He pronounced his words with difficulty and his
memory seemed to have suffered.’ (Rayoux, 1781).
1782 ‘A treatise on the medical properties of Mercury’ by John Howard
Part 1. Salivation
‘The devastation made by the sudden and unexpected
appearance of the Lues Venereii towards the close of the 15 th
century called forth the attention of mankind to the wonderful
properties of mercury. We shall at once see, that neither increased
perspiration, preternatural 145 flow of urine, nor any laxicity of the
bowels, short of a dysenteric kind of purging can measure the
antivenereal power of mercury with so much certainty as salivation…
when the medicine has been so urged as to produce a permanent
degree of weakness; to a very considerable degree a general
irritability often joined a partial one thus if sloughs have formed
behind the dental molar there will some time put on a kind of
phagedenic 146 appearance spread towards the uvula. (Howard,
1782).
1784 ‘On the efficacy of opium in the cure of venereal disease’ by F
Michaelis: Opium causes diarrhoea and salivation (Michaelis, 1784).
145 Preternatural= beyond normal
146 Phagedenic = pertaining to a progressive and rapidly spreading and sloughing ulceration