Doping and sports - 1-1799

50

Roman naturalist and philospher Pliny the Elder (24-79) reported that, in order to prevent dropouts, runners used decoctions of the Horsetail plant to shrink their spleen during long distance races. Some even had their spleen removed surgically.

160

The Greco-Roman physician Claudius Galen (131- 216) reported in his writings that Greek and Roman athletes took performance-enhancing drugs.

200

Greek sophist Flavius Philostratos (170-249) reported the use of performance-enhancing drugs in athletes.

1060

The Persian warlord Hassan-i-Sabbah (1034-1124) distributed cannabis among his fighters because of the euphoric and stimulating properties.

1450

Breton wrestlers agreed not to use products that could improve performance.

1500

Doping was limited to the use of natural resources until the sixteenth century, but chemical means were slowly becoming available, such as caffeine-containing medicines.

1588

The Italian anatomist Carlo Ruini (1530-1598), who became famous for his anatomical plates and dissections of horses, reported mixtures and extracts that were administered to horses to make them less phlegmatic.

1666

For the first time in history English administrators banned the use of doping in horses.

1790

In Cambridge, some men were sentenced to death and hanged because they had doped horses with arsenic.

At the same time, dogs were reported to be drugged.