Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

eruptions.
The first study of a drug interaction. Adrenal extract caused
ventricular fibrillation in a dog anaesthetised with chloroform (Oliver &
Schaefer, 1895). Lewin had mentioned that the English Chloroform
Committee had remarked that persons under the influence of
emotion, whether it be fear, fright or care were peculiarly liable to
succumb to the action of chloroform. He also said that chronic
alcoholics had abnormal reaction to chloroform needing larger
quantities than the normal person and also showing a high degree of
excitation. He uses the phrase ’ thus inebriates, through a
combination of the action of these two agents are more liable to
unpleasant untoward symptoms’. An appreciation of a drug
interaction.
1896 Scipione Riva-Rocci developed the mercury sphygmomanometer,
but like most new inventions its use only spread gradually over the
next 20 years.
1898 ‘King’s American Dispensatory’ by HW Felter & JU Lloyd. Pub. Ohio
Valley Co.
Opium: ‘nausea, emesis, restlessness, startling, disagreeable
visions, delirium, anxiety, unpleasant prickling sensation on the
surface of the body or a troublesome itching occasionally
accompanied by a slight eruption, giddiness, languid pulse, sickness
at the stomach, cephalgia, tremblings, want of appetite, mucous
secretions become suspended, constipation is induced, cutaneous
secretion is increased, retention of urine, diminution of the frequency
of the pulse, slow stertorous respiration, flaccidity of the extremities,
coma, first livid or turgid afterward pale features, livid lips,
excessively contracted pupils, coldness of the limbs, profuse cold
perspiration, convulsions may precede death.’
Hyoscyamus (henbane): ‘dryness of the mouth, flushing of the
face, pupillary dilatation, quickened cardiac and respiratory action,
illusions, hallucinations, loss of memory, deranged vision, giddiness,
fullness of the pulse, flushing of the face, weight in head, headache,
loss of muscular control, tremulousness, mental confusion,
incoherence of speech, somnolence, furious delirium,
unconsciousness, coma, cold sweat, convulsions, nausea and
vomiting, intestinal pain, and purging’.
White Hellebore: ‘sore mouth, swelling of the tongue, gastric heat
and burning, severe vomiting, profuse diarrhoea, vertigo, tremors of
the extremities, feeble pulse, loss of voice, dilatation of the pupils,