An outline history of pharmacy : part 2 : Renaissance to twentieth century

Abstract

In the field of pharmacy, the School of Salerno produced the Antidotarium parvum by Nicolas of Salerno which is a collection of formulae, probably compiled in the eleventh century. It contains a reference to the ingredients that were employed to produce an early form of surgical anaesthesia. This was the spongia somnifera consisting of a mixture, in water, of opium, mandrake and henbane. A rag was soaked in it and applied to the nostrils of the patient to put him to sleep and render him insensitive to the pain of surgical operations.