Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

oad, sparse, fairly faint, and fairly slow; as they are vomiting and
retching it is uneven and irregular, as they recover it is regular, but
still uneven, though less so than before; when they are close to the
normal state it is even, larger than before and more vigorous.’
(Singer, 2002). This is from a chapter on the pulse showing that he
paid a lot of attention to the minutiae.
Of jusquiame (henbane) he said ‘the jusquiame, which has the black
berry, provokes sleep, and troubles the understanding. The one, which
has the rather red berry, has almost the same properties as the other.
However and one and the other are dangerous and venomous.’
He used willow leaves for skin conditions (Brock, 1916). Galen
also mentions interactions ‘All such (cooling) drugs, then, when taken
in small amounts and in conjunction with substances which are able
to counteract the extreme nature of their cooling effect, may
sometimes be of value to our bodies.’
He developed the practice of using herbs in complex mixtures,
which became known as ‘Galenicals’. After Galen there was a period
when experimentation ceased (Mann, 1984). His influence persisted
until the 19 th century.
150–250 AD Acharya Nagarjuna lived in India some time during the period 150–
250 AD: he was a great alchemist and was later known as the
“Father of Indian Chemistry”. He was the first to use metal oxides,
black sulphide of mercury (Kajjali) and other mercury preparations in
medicine (Lamotte, 1966).
230 AD Hua Tuo employed anaesthesia during surgical procedures. It was
probably Cannabis indica mixed with wine or fumes of aconite,
datura and hyoscyamus (Atkin, 1995).
220 AD The first Chinese Herbal classic, ‘Shennong Bencao 23 Jing’ [Classic
of herbal medicine] was first mentioned. It described 365 herbs and
divided them into three categories according to their toxicity: These
were reported in ‘The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine’ as a
dialogue between Huang Di, who asks ‘Can you tell me about the
three grades of herbs that were recorded in the Shen Nong Ben
Cao?’ and Qi Bo replies ‘In ancient times the art of herbology was
practised by categorizing all herbs into three classifications:
The first category of herbs was called superior or immortal foods
because of their lack of side effects and strengthening qualities (e.g.
ginseng). These were often incorporated into one’s diet and were
used as preventative measures, e.g. Asian Ginseng, liquorice and
chrysanthemum