Figure 1.

The ancient Egyptian papyrus (so called “Ebers papyrus”: ≈1554 BC) recorded the oldest known description of therapeutic aerosol delivery (i.e., smoke of henbane plants was administered through the stalk of a reed). The schematic illustration showed an Egyptian caregiver preheated bricks (left) before throwing the weed onto them (middle). The vaporized liquid of black henbane plants that contained the tropane alkaloids such as atropine was then inhaled by a patient to relieve breathing stress (right). Redrawn from ref. [191].