Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

emarked that it was a violent medicine. Parkinson commended it in
1640. However, this was not the first account of the benefits of
digitalis (see 1765). Withering wrote on the 1 st July 1785 whilst Dr
Simmons of the Westminster General Dispensatory wrote in the
London Medical Journal, Volume 2, on the 11 th March 1785 ‘An
account of the effects of Digitalis Purpura in dropsy’ ‘Without its
seeming to be of much efficacy Digitalis purpura ranks among
poisonous plants, and may, if indiscreetly administered produce
alarming and even fatal effects’, but went on to say his patient
passed 9 pints of urine. A letter from a Dr John Warren in reply said
a trial of the virtues of this medicine about six years ago in a patient
with anasarca 148 , ascites and hydrothorax produced in 36 hours
nearly seven gallons of urine and was perfectly cured, but had a
great deal of nausea and frequent attempts to vomit.
Observations on the use of opium in removing symptoms supposed to
be owing to morbid irritability (1785) by Alexander Grant, Senior
surgeon of His Majesty’s Military Hospitals during the late war in North
America (1779). He used opium in cases of syphilis where mercury
was not working. ‘a tremor, which sometimes came on never obliged
me to decrease the dose unless the bowels were disposed to be
costive…. Except sometimes a giddiness… pulse decreased to
between forty and fifty strokes per minute…. On the second or third day
with some headache… with some diarrhoea. Increased secretion of
saliva is not uncommon as well as urine.’ (Grant, 1785).
First documented medical use of the word ‘placebo’ which means ‘A
common place method or medicine’ in the ‘New Medical Dictionary,
and general repository of physick containing an explanation of the
terms and a description of the various particulars.’ 2 nd edition.
(Motherby, 1785).
1786 An experimental inquiry into the properties of opium, and its effects
on living subjects: with observations on its history, preparations and
uses. Being the disputation which gained the Harveian Prize for ...
1785 by John Leigh, Edinburgh: C. Elliot, 1786. ‘I prevailed on a
healthy man to take 15 drops of it in a short space of time and it
began to operate and brought on such a vomiting as deterred me
from making further experiments of this nature.’ He tried opium in his
own eye and it gave him very severe pain lasting for 5 minutes.
148 Anasarca = generalised massive oedema