Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

population was approximately 6 million in 1300 dropping to 2.5
million in the 1450s only climbing again to 6 million in the 1700s. Life
expectancy dropped from 31.3 years to 17.3 years between 1348
and 1375 rising to 32.8 years in 1436 to 1450 (Russell, 1948).
1353 August A French Royal Ordonnance forbade anybody from preparing all
medicaments unless he knows how to read a prescription and
dispense and confire 47 (Bouvet, 1937).
1363 ‘Ungentum Saracenicum’ (containing Quicksilver) was
recommended for scabies by Guy de Chauliac (1300-1367) in
‘Grande Chirurgie’. He said that it caused salivation, loosened teeth
and gave him pains in the belly (Abraham, 1948). He also said that
‘Spongia somnifera could cause asphyxia, congestion and death.’
Francesco Petrarca in a letter to Bocaccio, Rerum Senilium V.3
‘I solemnly affirm and believe, if a hundred or a thousand men of
the same age, same temperament and habits, together with the
same surroundings, were attacked at the same time by the same
disease, that if one half followed the prescriptions of the doctors of
the variety of those practicing at the present day, and that the other
half took no medicine but relied on Nature’s instincts, I have no doubt
as to which half would escape.’ (www.jameslindlibrary.org).
1378 Italian Statutes of the College of Medicine and Arts of Bologna gave
jurisdiction over inspections of apothecaries’ shops (Gentilcore,
1994).
1380 Chaucer started writing ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
Sompnour was with us in the
place,
A summoner 48 was with us in
this place,
That had a fire red Cherubins
face,
That had a fiery-red cherubic
face,
For saufleme he was, with iyen
narow,
For pimpled he was with
narrow eyes,
47 Confire= preserve
48 Summoner = official responsible for calling people before a judge by issue of a summons