Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

Friar Lawrence: ‘Within the infant rind of this weak flower,
Poison hath residence, and medicine power
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers
each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.’
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.
Banquo: ‘Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?’
Macbeth Act I, Scene 3.
(Henbane was also known as ‘insina’ mad).
‘Trust not the physician
His antidotes are poison, and he slays
More than you rob.’
The Life of Timon of Athens (Timon at IV, iii).
Cornelius
(physician)
‘I do not like her. She doth think she has
Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile;
Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats
and dogs,
Then afterward up higher: but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d
With a most false effect; and I the truer,
So to be false with her.’
Cymbeline Act 1, Scene 5 .
Macbeth: ‘Throw physic to the dogs, I’ll none of it!’
Macbeth & Doctor at V, iii Tr.
Hamlet:
‘Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leprous distilment whose effect holds