Sabuncuoğlu’s rooster

Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, physician at the Amasya hospital, wanted to test whether his theriac worked against snake venom. He had a snake charmer’s viper bite a rooster’s leg, then put theriac down the bird’s throat. When the leg turned green he suspected he had given too little. The next day the rooster was walking about and the green was gone. He wrote the test into his book: an early recorded drug trial in Anatolia.

Source: Turhan Baytop, Türkiye’de Bitkiler ile Tedavi: Geçmişte ve Bugün, 3. baskı (yay. haz. Feza Baytop Günergun), Nobel Tıp Kitabevleri, Ankara, 2021 (Baytop, Türkiye’de Bitkiler ile Tedavi, 2021). This is a folk record, not a treatment recommendation.