Pills (Tablets of today) Pills date back to around 1500 BC. The first references to Pills are found on papyruses in ancient Egypt. Those Pills were made up of bread dough, honey or grease.

Origin of Receptors The great scientist Paul Ehlrich postulated that cell protoplasm contains special structures which have chemical side chains (today’s term is macromolecules) to which the toxin binds, affecting function. If the organism survives the effects of the toxin, the blocked side-chains are replaced by new ones. This regeneration can be trained, the name for this phenomenon being immunization. If the cell produces a surplus of side chains, these might also be released into the blood as antibodies.

Origin of Chemotherapy The term was coined in the early 1900s by Paul Ehrlich as meaning any use of chemicals to treat any disease (chemo + therapy), such as the use of antibiotics (antibacterial chemotherapy)

Ampoules Historically ampoules were used to contain a small sample of a person's blood after death, which was entombed alongside them. Some of these blood filled ampoules date back more than 300 years and are still available.

Intravenous administration in Humans This was initially introduced as saline drip by Dr. Thomas Aitchison Latta in 1832 at Edinburgh during a cholera epidemic which killed huge numbers of people. Latta was the leader of a group of three doctors, the other two being Dr Thomas Craigie and Dr Robert Lewins. The experiments were undertaken on five patients in the Edinburgh Cholera Hospital. Although his results were both remarkably good and effective in saving human lives, the research appeared to thereafter be forgotten for 70 years before rematerialising in more broader use.

Origin of Anaesthesia The first attempts at general anesthesia were probably herbal remedies administered in prehistoric period. Alcohol is the oldest known sedative which was used for anaesthesia in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. The Sushruta Samhita (a text from the Indian subcontinent on ayurvedic medicine and surgery) advocates the use of wine with incense of cannabis for anesthesia