Mithridate
- This article is about the remedy; Mithridate is also a play by Jean Racine.
Mithridate, also known as as mithridatium or mithridaticum, is a semi-mythical remedy with as many as 65 ingredients, used as an antidote for poisoning, and said to be created by Mithridates VI of Pontus. It was among one of the most complex, highly sought-after drugs during the Renaissance, particularly in Italy and France, where they were in continual use for centuries [7]. An updated recipe called theriac (Theriacum Andromachi) was known well into the 19th century. [1]
Its ingredients included opium, myrrh, agaric, saffron, ginger, cinnamon, spikenard, frankincense, castor, pepper, gentian, the dried flesh of vipers [2], Malabathrum [4], etc. The preparation was considered a cordial, opiate, sudorific, and alexipharmic. Petrus Andreas Matthiolus considered it more effectual against poisons than venice treacle, and easier to make.[1]
Mithridate takes its name from its inventor, Mithridates, King of Pontus, who is said to have so fortified his body against poisons with antidotes and preservatives, that when he tried to kill himself, he could not find any poison that would have an effect. The receipt of it was found in his cabinet, written with his own hand, and was carried to Rome by Pompey. It was translated into verse by Damocrates, a famous physician, and was afterwards translated by Galen. It likely underwent considerable alterations since the time of its royal prescriber.[1]
Mithridate was used as part of a regimen to ward off potential threats of plague. According to Simon Kellwaye (1593), one should "take a great Onyon, make a hole in the myddle of him, then fill the place with Mitridat or Triacle, and some leaues of Rue" [5]. Until as late as 1786, physicians in London could officially prescribe mithridate.[2]
The term mithridate has come to refer to any generally all-purpose antidote.[3]
Criticism
Pliny (Natural History, XXIX.24-25) was skeptical of mithridate and other such theriacs, with their numerous ingredients:
- "The Mithridatic antidote is composed of fifty-four ingredients, no two of them having the same weight, while of some is prescribed one sixtieth part of one denarius. Which of the gods, in the name of Truth, fixed these absurd proportions? No human brain could have been sharp enough. It is plainly a showy parade of the art, and a colossal boast of science." [6]
In literature
In A. E. Houseman's collection of poetry titled A Shropshire Lad, there is a poem about King Mithridates and his antidote's amazing abilities:
- There was a king reigned in the East:
- There, when kings will sit to feast,
- They get their fill before they think
- With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
- He gathered all the springs to birth
- From the many-venomed earth;
- First a little, thence to more,
- He sampled all her killing store;
- And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
- Sate the king when healths went round.
- They put arsenic in his meat
- And stared aghast to watch him eat;
- They poured strychnine in his cup
- And shook to see him drink it up:
- They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
- Them it was their poison hurt.
- --I tell the tale that I heard told.
- Mithridates, he died old. [6]
References
- ^
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) "Mithridate". - ^ Nature. 14 Sept 1989. 115/1.
- ^ Sci. Monthly. Sept 1932. 244/1.
- ^ Dunglison, Robley. 1848. Medical lexicon. A dictionary of medical science.
- ^ Kellwaye, Simon. 1593. A defensatiue against the plague contayning two partes or treatises.... 32.
- ^ Grout, James. "Mithridatum". Encyclopaedia Romana. Retrieved 2006-01-26.
- ^ "Pair of Drug Jars". The J. Paul Getty Museum. Retrieved 2006-01-26.