Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

most eminent physicians for the examination, analyzation and
approbation of every medicine before an advertisement should be
admitted into any newspaper or any other periodical publication and
before it should be vended in any manner whatsoever…. But we are
well aware, that the plan we have proposed is extremely imperfect,
and the execution of it in its present form would be attended with
many difficulties. We can only plead in excuse for offering it, our zeal
to remedy an increasing evil, and hope, that our humble attempt may
induce some much abler writer to suggest a plan, better calculated to
answer the important end for which it is designed’. As Penn has said
‘This plea for legislation had no effect whatsoever and little progress
was made until the next century.’ (Penn, 1979).
A letter in the same journal dated June 12 th 1799 gave an account
of the deleterious effects of the lolium or darnel. A sack of leafed
wheat with an equal quantity of tarling wheat (i.e. the refuse seeds
which pass the sieve) abounding very much with darnel (perennial
rye grass)…were ground and dressed together, and in the evening
about ten o’clock, bread was made of a part of it…. ‘of this bread,
Robert, aged thirteen, eat the next morning… he fell giddy, and had
pain of the head during the whole of the first day, with great pain and
tightness of the legs especially of the calves of the legs, extending to
the ankles, attended with redness and swelling, and itching of the
skin, but it did not vomit or purge him until the third day… the pain
and inflammation continued to increase, till it terminated in gangrene;
sphacelous (necrosis) succeeded and he was under the necessity of
suffering amputation of both legs.’ This is an early account of a case
of ergotism.
A further letter in the same journal ‘According to an account given
by Dr De Witt, physician in the city of Albany, the effects of the
Datura stramonium, thorn apple, appear to be so extraordinary (due
to the anticholinergic action of the tropane alkaloids), that well
deserve the further notice and investigation of practitioners… found
to produce:
1. Unusual pain and anxiety
2. Convulsive motions
3. Apparent dread or aversion to water or fluids of any kind
4. Vesication on the skin, after the violent symptoms had
subsided; and
5. Large and involuntary discharge of urine.’ (Witt, 1799).
These two reports emphasize the importance of anecdotal reports
of adverse drug effects, which has become the main source of