Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

disease has disappeared and this seems the strongest evidence that
the cause was mercury in teething powders. (The causes of Pink
disease by Diane Farnsworth)
(http://www.pinkdisease.org/causePD.htm).Accessed 9th April 2013
1905 A patient with severe rheumatism was given 15 gr. Aspirin and after
2 days there was violent palpitations, difficult respiration, extreme
weakness, approaching unconsciousness and the voiding of green
urine. There was a positive rechallenge (Barnett, 1905). There was
little published in the Lancet between 1900 and 1910 on the ADRs of
Aspirin, but one noted originally in a French paper was an account of
unpleasant symptoms caused by the new synthetic substance
Aspirin: some cases of gastric pain, vomiting, giddiness, painful
oedema of the eyelids and the lips extending at times to the head
and to the mucous membranes of the pharynx. A single case of a
scarlatinform rash was also reported plus a case of epistaxis (Notes,
Lancet, 1905).
Aspirin-induced fixed drug eruption with a positive rechallenge was
reported (Freund, 1905).
Aspirin goes on sale in the UK on 30 th October 1905.
The American Medical Association organised ‘The Council on
Pharmacy and Chemistry’, which evaluated new drugs and reevaluated
old drugs.
Pirquet and Scich gave the first detailed description of serum
sickness (fever, lymphadenopathy, cutaneous eruptions and
arthralgias) caused by diphtheria antitoxin in 1905 (Pirquet & Scich,
1905). They defined it as ‘specific acquired reactivity which follows
initial response to foreign protein.’.
1906 The Pure Food and Drugs Act (USA) concerned labelling and
prohibited interstate commerce in adulterated food and drugs. This
had been prompted by the popular press protesting against ‘filthy
conditions in Chicago’s packing plants’ and ‘nostrums laden with
arsenic and other harmful ingredients, the unfounded cures for
cancer, TB, syphilis, narcotic addiction and a host of other serious as
well as self-limited disease’. (FDA, 2006). Drugs had either to abide
by standards of purity and quality set forth in the US Pharmacopoeia
and the National Formulary, or meet individual standards chosen by
their manufacturers and stated on their labels. Proprietary drug
manufacturers and business lobbies kept the food bill from becoming
law earlier (Young, 1981).
Clemens Von Pirquet coined the term ‘allergy’ (Von Pirquet, 1906).