Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

given at such a time, it is sure to be productive of excruciating
agonies.’
Hyoscyamus: ‘known also as the Apollinaris, Henbane or
Altercum. The root is sometimes made use of; but the employment of
this plant in any way for medical purposes is, in my opinion, highly
dangerous. For it is a fact well ascertained, that the leaves even will
exercise a deleterious effect upon the mind, if more than four are
taken at a time; though the ancients were of opinion that the leaves
act as a febrifuge, taken in wine’... ‘they have all of them, the effect of
producing vertigo and insanity’. ‘An oil (I say) is made of the seed
thereof, which if it be taken into ears, is enough to trouble the brain.’
(Naturalis Historiæ translated by Philemon Holland 1601).
Quicksilver: ‘It acts as a poison upon everything, and pierces
vessels even, making its way through them by the agency of its
malignant property.’ He also said ‘The dung of wood-pigeon is
particularly good taken internally as an antidote to quicksilver.’
(Bostock & Riley, 1855).
He used poplar bark infusions for pain in sciatica (Rainsford,
1984).
Willow: he also recommended a paste made from the ash of
willow bark for removing corns and callosities (local application of
salicylic acid is still used for warts). He goes on to say that ‘the bark
and leaves, boiled in wine, form a decoction that is remarkably useful
as a fomentation for affections of the sinews.’
Also he said ‘Marvellous efficacy of human experiment, which has
not left even the dregs of substance and the fouled refuse untested
in such numerous ways’ (medicinal). There seems to have been no
substance animal, vegetable or mineral that has not been used as a
drug at some time.
He also criticised doctors: ‘…but of all these facts the doctors, if
they will permit me to say so, are ignorant–they are governed by
names; so detached they are from the process of making up drugs,
which used to be the special business of the medical profession.
Nowadays whenever they come on books of prescriptions, wanting
to make up some medicines out of them, which means to make trial
of the ingredients in the prescriptions at the expense of their unhappy
patients, they rely on the fashionable druggists’ shops, which spoil
everything with fraudulent adulterations, and for a long time they
have been buying plasters and eye-salves ready-made; and thus is
deteriorated rubbish of commodities and the fraud of the druggists’
trade put on show.’ (Book XXXIV.25).