Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

White Hellebore: ‘violent purging, emetic extreme violence’.
Opium (small dose): ‘increases energy of the mind, frequency of
the pulse and heat of the body, excites thirst, renders mouth dry and
parched, diminishes all the secretions and excretions. Excess dose:
headache, vertigo, delirium, convulsions, stertorous breathing, stupor
and death.’
‘An essay on a peculiar eruptive disease arising from the exhibition
of mercury’ by George Alley. Dublin 1804.
‘Languor, lassitude, restlessness, cold shiverings, fever, sore
throat, white tongue, quick pulse, nausea, headache, thirst, hard dry
cough, difficult respiration, anxiety, sense of oppression about the
precordium 157 , painful tumours, costive, skin hot and itchy.’
1805 Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner, a German chemist, isolates and
describes morphine. He also described the results of experiments in
which he and three of his colleagues each orally consumed three halfgrain
(32 mgm) doses of morphine within approximately 30 minutes.
Sertürner became alarmed at the response of his friends, and had
them drink vinegar, causing a violent emesis.
‘The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal’ First number. Thomas
Spens wrote on January 1st 1805 ‘History of three cases of
Erythema Mercuriale with observations.’
1806 Essay on Erythema mercuriale, or that eruption which sometimes
occurs from the use of mercury by John M’Mullin: ‘Symptoms copied
from Thomas Spens 1804. ‘…generally costive. … On the first or
second day rash, papular, distinct elevated like rubella sometimes
like intertrigo, In most cases began first on scrotum, inside thighs,
forearms, pulse 120-130, cuticle pale continued for 10–14 days,
minute blisters, desquamated, idiosyncrasy.’ He also referred to
other similar accounts in 1804.
James Hamilton wrote ‘Observations on the utility and administration
of purgative medicines in several diseases’.
The belief that one should expel evil humours lives on and the
diseases that he thought benefited from purgatives were: chlorosis,
chorea (St Vitus’s dance), chronic diseases, haematemesis, hysteria,
marasmus, scarlatina, tetanus, and typhus (Hamilton, 1806).
1809 Dr Falconer of Bath warns of the dangerous effects of mercury in the
1st Volume ‘Transactions of the Medical Society of London’, May
157 Precordium = chest area covering the heart