Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

dangereux et si cruel’ (Many patients prefer to die of syphilis than to
look for a cure with such a dangerous and cruel treatment’).
1580 It took approximately 2,000 years before the work of Shen Nong and
his followers were documented in a book called ‘Shen Nong Bencao
Jing’. Chinese medicine seems to have reached its peak during the
Ming dynasty (1368-1644) when Li Shih-chen wrote his ‘Bencao
Gangmu ‘(The Great Herbal). This pharmacopoeia, which
summarizes what was known of herbal medicine up to the late 16th
century, describes in detail more than 1800 plants, animal
substances, minerals, and metals, along with their medicinal
properties and applications.
‘Approved medicines and cordial recipes with the natures, qualities,
and operations of sundry samples. Very commodious and expedient
for all that are studious of such knowledge’ by Newton, Thomas,
1542-1607. There is no mention of hellebore or willow.
Opium: ‘taken in excesse it does refrigerate so much, that it
stupifieth, and makes the body without sense or feeling: but taken in
a convenient quantity, it doth cease pains, and provokes sleep.’
Henbane (Herba Apollinaris, Iusquiamus vulgò)
‘The kind of Henbane that has the white flower & the white seed is
used in physick, to cease vehement pains and distillations of the
head, and the eyes: given in a convenient quantity it provokes sleep,
the other kinds are not to be used, for they be stupefacient and
perilous.’
‘The Royal Pragmatic, Kingdom of Naples gave instructions to the
physician and apothecary who, as substitute proto-physician and
proto-apothecary, elected by the Royal Protomedico of the present
Kingdom of Naples, will carry out the visitation of the apothecaries
and other [medical practitioners] subject to the authority of the Royal
Protomedico.’
The Protomedicati (medical tribunals) were headed by the
Protomedico or first physician and had started in Sicily in 1397 and in
1477 had been established in Spain and later in its colonies. By 1500
had spread to all the towns in Italy and Spain. Their appointment was
made under three headings:
1. Collegiate, e.g. the medical colleges of Rome or Siena
2. Royal or Spanish, e.g. the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily
3. Municipal (town or city), e.g. Gubbio and Benevento (Gentilcore,
1994).