Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

Vernor and Hood, London, 1798. ‘I have to say in favour of the
Willow that except in a single instance (which may be noticed in the
case of Collins [diarrhoea]) I never found it to disagree with the
stomach or bowels...
In short in all cases of ague and intermittent fevers that have come
within my practice I have found this bark without a single exception,
an infallible remedy. I have never found it to disagree with the
stomach, or bowels.’ (White, 1798).
‘A Compendious Medical Dictionary’ Containing an explanation of
the terms in anatomy, physiology, surgery, materia medica,
chemistry, and practice. London, by Robert Hooper MD.
Salix: ‘Salix, the willow, is recommended to be a good substitute
for Peruvian bark and is said to cure intermittent and other diseases
requiring tonic and astringent remedies.’
Hellebore Album: ‘It acts very powerfully upon the nervous system,
producing great anxiety, tremors, vertigo, syncope, aphonia,
interrupted respiration, sinking pulse, convulsions, spasms and
death.’
Hellebore Niger: ‘At present it is exhibited principally as an
alterative, or, when given in a large dose, as a pugative. It often
proves a very powerful emmengogue 152 in plethoric habits, when
steel is ineffective or improper… a florid redness frequently appeared
on the face, and various cutaneous efflorescences upon the body…
in some pleuritic symptoms, with fever supervened…nor were
alarming affections of spasms and convulsions unfrequent…many
sweated profusely, in some the urine was considerably increased, in
others the saliva and mucous discharges;’
Opium: ‘Taken into the stomach in immoderate doses proves a
powerful poison producing vertigo, tremors, convulsions, delirium,
stupor, stertor and finally fatal apoplexy.’ (Hooper, 1798).
‘Mercurial Lepra’ by Whitley Stoker. There was a flurry of papers
about the skin reactions to mercury about the turn of the century.
1799 A letter to the ‘Medical and Physical Journal’ (Volume 1, Number 1)
on April 24 th 1799 under the pseudonym of Aliquis wrote ‘On
Quackery, and the most effectual means of checking its dangerous
progress.’ He wrote ‘If we might venture to offer a few hints on a
subject apparently of so much consequence, we would submit to the
legislature the propriety of erecting a public board composed of the
152 Emmenogogue = emmenagogue = encourages menstrual flow