Abstract: In the Renaissance, and at the beginning of the modern era, doctors can be seen to have had a thorough knowledge of toxic matter, since poison was seen as a pharmakon which could both damage and improve the health, and lead either to death or the rebirth of the human being. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the presentation of treated cases, clinical summaries, and accounts of experimentation on animals illustrate the interest of doctors like Th. Bonet or G. B. Morgagni in poison.
