摘要:“ Side Effects of Drugs ” (SED), the so-called “Encyclopedia of Information on the Adverse Reactions to Drugs” published by the Excerpta Medica, Amsterdam, has been issued 15 volumes during 25 years from vol. 1 (1957) to Annual 5 (1981). This series can be divided into three periods: (1) The first period: vol. 1 (1957) -vol. 5 (1966) --Meyler himself was the editor. (2) The second period: vol. 6 (1968) -vol. 7 (1972) --Herxheimer joined as the co-editor. (3)The third period: vol. 8 (1975) -present--Dukes succeeded to the editor after Meyler's death. The author presents a history and characteristics of SED by the periods demonstrating by detailed literature search examples on the adverse effects of drugs. SED had better being used together with additional supplementary materials, which the author lists by the material types, and it is essential to trace back to the original articles in which the information appeared.