Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
Description
From the Wikipedia entry:
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. … Mithridate was used as part of a regimen to ward off potential threats of plague.
Annotations
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from Benjamin Wooley’s “Heal Thyself, Nicholas Culpeper and the 17th C. ….”p140:
“Theriac (treacle) of Mithridates had been the sovereign remedy of the physician’s pharmacopoeia since the Middle Ages…its fifty ingredients coming form the four corners of the known earth. It contained myrrh,saffron, agrick, ginger,cinnamon, spikenard, frakincense, oil of nutmeg, turpentine, juice of hypocistis styrax calanitis, cassia ligneam Macedoonian Parsley seed, seeds of Cretan carrot, valerian, the bellies of skinks, the tops of St. John’s wort, & Malaga wine.”
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Mithridate (3 syl.).
A confection said to be invented by Mithridates, King of Pontus and Bithynia, as an antidote to poison. It contains seventy-two ingredients.
“What brave spirit could be content to sit in his shop … selling Mithridatum and dragon’s water to infected houses?”- Knight of the Burning Pestle. (1635.)
(Brewer’s Phrase and Fable)