Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

he strewed powdered Henbane, and lighting it, went round about the
tent with it till the smoke entered the nostrils of the guards, and they
all fell asleep, drowned by the drug.’ (History of Gharib and his
Brother Ajib, Vol. VII, p. 7).
Nightshade; ‘a drachm of the extract from the root when dissolved in
water produces fleeting images that please the sense but if the dose be
doubled it can cause immediate death.’ (Dioscorides P, c100 AD).
c150 AD Claudius Galen (c129–c199 [?131–201/216 AD]). Galen says that
those substances which are assimilated are called foods and that all
others are called drugs. The latter he breaks down to four classes:
‘There is one kind that remain as they are when taken, and
transform and overpower the body, in the same manner that the
body does foods; these drugs are of course deleterious and
destructive to the animal’s nature. The other kind takes the cause
of its change from the body itself, then undergoes putrefaction
and destruction, and in that process causes putrefaction and
destruction to the body also. These too are clearly deleterious. In
addition to these, a third kind heats the body reciprocally but does
not harm; and a fourth both acts and is acted upon, so that they
are gradually completely assimilated. This last kind, therefore,
falls into the category of both drugs and foods.’
He also says ‘There are four faculties of the body as a whole: that
which attracts familiar substances, that which retains these, that
which transforms substances and that which expels alien
substances. These faculties are those that belong to the entire
substances of each of the bodies, which substance, as we have
seen, is composed of a mixture of hot, cold, dry, and wet.’ (Singer,
1997). This philosophy of the four humours has no logical basis and
when it affects the drawing of conclusions from the observation of
medical events it may lead to false conclusions. However, when the
observer just reports his observation then we have a valuable
statement. Examples follow:
‘All those who drink of this remedy recover in a short time, except
those whom it does not help, who die. Therefore, it is obvious that it
fails only in incurable cases’. In ‘Facultatum simplicium
mediamentorum.’ [Of the abundance of simple remedies] Galen saith
the seed (of poppy) is dangerous to be used inwardly.’
Hellebore ‘In subjects who have taken hellebore the pulse just
before the vomiting, while they are undergoing compression, is