Dissolving the Stone: The Search for Lithontriptics (original) (raw)
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Opium: Explorations of an Ambiguous Drug
Drugs on Trial, 1999
The foundations of modern pharmacology are generally thought to have been laid during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1805, Friedrich Wilhelm Sertürner published his isolation of morphine from opium, i.e. the discovery of the first plant alkaloid. In 1821, François Magendie's Formulaire pour la Préparation et l'Emploi de Plusieurs Nouveaux Médicamens, the first textbook on chemically pure drugs, came out. And in 1847, Rudolf Buchheim of the University of Dorpat created the first laboratory for experimental pharmacology. Improved methods of analytical chemistry and the emerging discipline of experimental physiology contributed considerably to the new pharmacological research. 1 Moreover, increasing use of clinical statistics led to the rise of modern therapeutics. In his Recherches sur les Effets de la Saignée (1835), the Paris hospital doctor Pierre Louis famously applied the "numerical method" to evaluate bloodletting and drug treatments for pneumonia and other inflammatory diseases. 2 Customary focus on these milestones in the history of pharmacology and therapeutics has resulted, however, in a relative lack of appreciation of important changes within the materia medica of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Gernot Rath for example, in a by now classic paper on this subject, argued that the transformation of pharmacology from a part of therapeutics to an experimental science did not originate from materia medica itself, but was induced by the development of pathology and physiology. 3 The history of modern pharmacology was thus firmly linked with the nineteenth century, the age of the natural sciences in medicine. By contrast, this book attempts to show that experimental pharmacology was not a nineteenth-century, but essentially an eighteenth-century creation. It will demonstrate that the basic methodology of the field was developed through critical examinations of key drugs of the period, such as opium and Peruvian
1999
The foundations of modern pharmacology are generally thought to have been laid during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1805, Friedrich Wilhelm Sertürner published his isolation of morphine from opium, i.e. the discovery of the first plant alkaloid. In 1821, François Magendie's Formulaire pour la Préparation et l'Emploi de Plusieurs Nouveaux Médicamens, the first textbook on chemically pure drugs, came out. And in 1847, Rudolf Buchheim of the University of Dorpat created the first laboratory for experimental pharmacology. Improved methods of analytical chemistry and the emerging discipline of experimental physiology contributed considerably to the new pharmacological research. 1 Moreover, increasing use of clinical statistics led to the rise of modern therapeutics. In his Recherches sur les Effets de la Saignée (1835), the Paris hospital doctor Pierre Louis famously applied the "numerical method" to evaluate bloodletting and drug treatments for pneumonia and other inflammatory diseases. 2 Customary focus on these milestones in the history of pharmacology and therapeutics has resulted, however, in a relative lack of appreciation of important changes within the materia medica of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Gernot Rath for example, in a by now classic paper on this subject, argued that the transformation of pharmacology from a part of therapeutics to an experimental science did not originate from materia medica itself, but was induced by the development of pathology and physiology. 3 The history of modern pharmacology was thus firmly linked with the nineteenth century, the age of the natural sciences in medicine. By contrast, this book attempts to show that experimental pharmacology was not a nineteenth-century, but essentially an eighteenth-century creation. It will demonstrate that the basic methodology of the field was developed through critical examinations of key drugs of the period, such as opium and Peruvian
The Early Development of Pharmacology in America
1976
Presented is a review of the development of the science of pharmacology, the study of the interaction of chemical agents with living matter. The origins of the field are traced from-17th century Europe to the present, with major emphasis upon the scientists and developments made in the field in the United States. (SL)
The Formation and Early Work of the Drug Laboratory, USDA Bureau of Chemistry*
2005
News and Notes from the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy is a unique organization dedicated to the preservation of pharmacy's heritage. The Apothecary's Cabinet is a publication from AIHP that takes a popular look at the history of pharmacy in its many facets. We welcome your comments and submissions.
Experimental Clinical Medicine and Drug Action in Mid-Seventeenth- Century Leiden
SUMMARY: Leiden University boasted one of the most popular and influential medical schools of the mid-seventeenth century, drawing hundreds of students from across Europe. These students participated in the revival of frequent clinical instruction, anatomical and chymical experiments, and even tests of supposed disease-causing substances and remedies on living animals and humans. Comparing records of cases from the hospital clinic with the professors' treatises and student-authored disputations shows that old and new theories of disease and drug action were hotly contested and often tested, including the claims of the leading professors at the school. Though notable exemplars of their work received sharp criticism and rejection from contemporaries and subsequent generations, Leiden students and professors united chymistry, postmortem autopsy, anatomical experiments, and clinical tests, often aiming at discovery. They enacted one, perhaps ephemeral, instance of experimental, clinical medicine well before its putative modern birth.
Making and taking theriac: an experimental and sensory approach to the history of medicine
British Journal for the History of Science Themes, 2022
This paper explores historically used medicaments by making them, or rather reworking them, in a modern laboratory and assessing them for taste, flavour and odour using sensory analysis and a trained panel of sensory assessors. Our test subject is the famous panacea theriac andromachalis, which is subjected to the methods of experimental history of science to create experimental data. We emphasize the importance of the sensory experience, in both the making and the taking of theriac. From antiquity and well into the nineteenth century, medical practitioners and patients held that the sensory qualities of medicaments were of significance. But sensory information is notoriously difficult to transmit textually, and today we know very little about the sensory characteristics of theriac, and other medicines of the past. This is a problematic lacuna in our knowledge of how actors perceived and used them. By choosing the reworking and sensory framework, we can approach early modern pharmacy both as a craft and as a creative process. Thus our study emphasizes the artisanal, or craft, aspect of medicine making. It indicates how the art of medicine making was integrated with and connected to a medical practice which relied heavily on direct sensory assessments of medicaments, disease and patients. Our purpose is, however, not to try to find out how historical medicine makers and patients 'really felt' when they experienced the act of smelling and tasting medicines. Our aim is rather to discuss what the sensory experience of making and tasting adds to the investigation of textual sources. Thus, by attempting to access information about the experience of medicine through experimental means, we aim to enrich and complement historical understanding of the medicines and medical theories of the past.