Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

1879 The individual predisposition to injurious effects of certain drugs may
be hereditary (King, 1879).
From 1879 to 1905 at least 190 bills related to US federal control of
foods and drugs were proposed but none were passed (Abraham,
1995).
The employment of black hellebore is nearly obsolete but the drug is
still imported from Germany and sold for use in domestic animals
(Flückner & Hanbury, 1879).
1880 The BMA committee, known as the Glasgow Committee, on
chloroform deaths concluded that chloroform was hazardous
because it depressed respiration and had a deleterious effect on the
heart–The McKendrick Report. They had carried out many
investigations in animals (rabbits and dogs) and had analysed
reports of fatal accidents in patients. This produced a backlash in that
the Hyderabad Commission on chloroform in 1889 reported that
chloroform was safe, but that any deaths were due to asphyxia and
not to cardiac arrest. A second Hyderabad Report in 1890 said that
chloroform was ‘as safe as whisky and water’. They had carried out
the experiments on over 1,000 animals (dogs and monkeys). The
truth is that chloroform sensitises the myocardium to catecholamines,
which may induce a variety of cardiac arrhythmias including fatal
ventricular fibrillation (Wade, 1970).
Van Harlington referring to skin ADRs said ‘I endeavoured to collect
and collate cases arranging them into groupings under the heading
of each drug the various lesions of the skin which have been
attributed to its influence.’ These drugs included: arsenic, belladonna,
chloral, iodine, mercury, morphine, quinine and salicylates (Laughlin
& Jackson, 1986).
1881 Louis Lewin published ‘Nebenwirkungen der Arzneimittel:
Pharmakologisch–Klinisch Handbuch’ [The Incidental Effects of
Drugs: A Pharmacological and Clinical Hand-book]. (1882) W.
Wood. There are 783 pages and drugs are dealt with in turn after a
38-page introduction. This would seem to be the first collection of
ADRs from all body systems.
Lewin recognised ‘type A’ and ‘type B’ ADR but did not use those
terms ‘There has been some hesitation in regarding these
“nebenwirkungen (adverse events)” as poisonous effects. And very
properly so, for we are not justified in regarding one or more
symptoms as the effects of a poison, simply because they may not
occur in 999 cases and yet appear in the thousandth. In addition to