Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

No mention of side effects.
1270 A treatise on antidotes for poisons was written in 1270 in Syria by ‘Ali
ibn ‘Abd al-’Azim al-Ansari. The treatise provides information
regarding medical learning in the Crusader States as well as the
plants that the author describes as having been found in Syria at the
time. Moreover, al-Ansari incorporated into the study extensive
quotations from other treatises on plants and antidotes ‘Dhikr altiryāq
al-fārūq’ (MS A 64) [Memoir on antidotes for poisons]).
1271 The Medical Faculty of Paris forbade the prescribing of medicines
except by qualified physicians. Apothecaries were to prepare only
those drugs prescribed by the physicians (Prioreschi, 2001).
1275 Ether (C 4 H 10 O) discovered (no firm evidence) in 1275 by Spanish
chemist Raymundus Lullius, but it was used for topical application
only.
Late 13 th century
Gilbert Anglicus reported that pouring quicksilver into the ear
produces the most distressing symptoms: severe pain, delirium,
convulsions, epilepsy, apoplexy and, if the quicksilver penetrates to
the brain, ultimate death (Handersen, 1918).
1214–1294 Roger Bacon wrote ‘Tract on the tincture and oil of antimony.’ It
causes a sweat ‘that is very inconstant, viscous and thick, that smells
and tastes quite sour and offensive.’ He used it for gout, leprosy,
apoplexy or stroke, dropsy, epilepsy, hectic fever 44 and pestilence.
He also wrote ‘De Erroribus Medicorum’ in which he explained the 36
errors committed by physicians. He starts by saying ‘The ordinary
doctor knows nothing about simple drugs, but entrusts himself to
ignorant apothecaries, concerning whom it is agreed by these
doctors themselves that they have no other purpose but to deceive.’
The fourth defect he mentions is ‘as to the dosage of a harmful drug,
which is unknown as regards the human body in this age, as with
scammony, opium and the like. For there is no method prescribed or
known as to the quantity men of this age should take, and how much
ought to be given according to ages and epochs. And therefore
death or bodily wasting very often follows, and various infirmities, and
scammony brings man to dysentery or death, and opium produces
idiocy.’ He finishes by exhorting doctors to prove their assertions by
experiment ‘Now follows “scientia experimentalis”, whose prime
44 Hectic fever= consumption= tuberculosis