Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

78 AD Pedanius Dioscorides (c 40–90 AD) wrote ‘De Materia Medica Libri
Quinque’ [Concerning medical materials. Five books]:
Book I contains aromatics, oils, ointments and trees.
Book II lists living creatures, milk and dairy products, cereals
and sharp herbs.
Book III describes roots, juices and herbs.
Book IV herbs and roots.
Book V vines and wines and metallic ores.
This text contains 950 curative substances, of which 600 are plant
products and the rest are of animal or mineral origin (Ackerknecht,
1973). Each entry includes a drawing, a description of the plant, an
account of its medicinal qualities and method of preparation, and
warnings about undesirable effects.
Hellebore: ‘White hellebore helps melancholy, the falling sickness,
madness, gout, etc., but not to be taken of old men, youths, such as
are weaklings, nice, or effeminate, troubled with headache, highcoloured,
or fear strangling,’ saith Dioscorides. The pods and seeds:
‘These both cause delirium and sleep and are scarcely usable.’
Thorn Apple (Datura strammonium): ‘The root being drank with the
quantity of a dragm, has the power to effect not unpleasant fantasies.
But 2 dragms being drunk, make one beside himself for three days
and 4 being drank kill him. But the remedy of this is Melicrate (honey
water), much being drank, and vomited up again.’
Opium (Papaver somniferum): ‘Taken as a drink too often it hurts,
making men lethargic and it kills.’ Noted ‘pruritus opii’ (Dioscorides,
1516).
Mercury: ‘Taken as a drink it eats through the internal organs by its
weight.’
Willow: Dioscorides suggested: ‘The leaves [of the willow] being
beaten small and drank with a little pepper and wine do help such as
are troubled with the Iliac Passion [colic]... The decoction of the
leaves and bark is an excellent fomentation 23 for the Gout ...’
Colchicum: he also mentioned the poisonous properties of
Colchicum(Colchicum autumnale) and he believed that an excessive
use of coriander (Coriandrum sativum) affected the brain (Cilliers and
Retief, 2000).
Henbane: ‘Presently he filled a cresset 24 with firewood, on which
23 Fomentation = a piece of cloth wrung out of boiling water or solution and placed on the disease site =
poultice
24 Cresset = fire basket