Noted by Cantor 2001:174. By contrast, Christiane Fabbri arguesChristiane Fabbri, 2007. Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac. that theriac, which very frequently contained opium, actually did have palliative effect against pain and reduced coughing and diarrhea.
|
|
Preparation of Theriac: Illustration from the Tacuinum sanitatis. Theriac or theriaca is a medical concoction originally formulated by the Greeks in the 1st century AD and widely adopted in the ancient world as far away as Persia, China and India via the trading links of the Silk Route. It was an alexipharmic, or antidote, considered a panacea, for which it could serve as a synonym: in the 16th century Adam Lonicer wrote that garlic was the rustic's theriac or Heal-All.A. Vogel, Plant Encyclopedia. s.v.
|
|
Galen was a philosopher, physician, pharmacist and prolific medical writer. He compiled an extensive record of the medical knowledge of his day and added his own observations. He wrote on the structure of organs, but not their uses; the pulse and its association with respiration; the arteries and the movement of blood; and the uses of theriacs. "In treatises such as On Theriac to Piso, On Theriac to Pamphilius, and On Antidotes, Galen identified theriac as a sixty-four-ingredient compound, able to cure any ill known".
|
|
Greek physician Galen devoted a whole book Theriaké to theriac. One of his patients, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, took it on a regular basis. In 667, ambassadors from Rûm presented the Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty in China with a theriac. The Chinese observed that it contained the gall of swine, was dark red in colour and the foreigners seemed to respect it greatly.
|
|
Ramban Commentary to Exodus 30:34. See also Ritva (Pesahim 45b), Rabbenu Manoah (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Chametz u'Matzah 4:10), and Shulchan Aruch, Orah Haim 442 In medieval times, theriac was said to include ground mummy among its ingredients. By the time of the Renaissance, the making of theriac had become an official ceremony, especially in Italy. Pharmacists sold it as late as 1884.
|
|
The production of a proper theriac took months with all the collection and fermentation of herbs and other ingredients. It was supposed to be left to mature for years. As a result, it was also expensive and hence available only for the rich. According to the commentary on Exodus, Ki Tisa, the Ramban lists the ingredients of theriac as leaven, honey, flesh of wild beasts and reptiles, dried scorpion and viper.
|
|
', first published in 1676, was the best-known of Charas's works and was the first medical book from Europe translated into Chinese. A medication included in his formulary was theriac which was first made popular by the Greeks as an antidote to animal bites and disseminated over the Silk Route. The formula for theriac included as many as 600 separate ingredients and was kept secret for over seventeen centuries. Another medication included was orvietan.
|
|
Among Maranta's most-referenced works is his treatise on antidotes to poisons, Della theriaca et del mithridato, in two volumes (1572). Maranta maintained that theriac had been tested on criminals condemned to death and was proven in antiquity to be infallible. It was also a treatment for all diseases. If theriac failed to produce results, he said, it was because the physicians and pharmacists of his own time lacked the knowledge to compound it.
|
|
The Septuagint has , "pine resin". The Arabic version and Castell hold it for theriac. Lee supposes it to be "mastich". Luther and the Swedish version have "salve", "ointment" in the passages in Jer.
|
|
The title is the Latinized form of the Greek neuter plural adjective (thēriaka), "having to do with venomous animals",. which in turn derives from (thērion), "wild animal".. A corresponding English noun theriac also exists.
|
|
Theriac, the most expensive of medicaments, was called Venice treacle by the English apothecaries. At the time of the Black Death in the mid 14th century, Gentile da Foligno, who died of the plague in June 1348, recommended in his plague treatise that the theriac should have been aged at least a year. Children should not ingest it, he thought, but have it rubbed on them in a salve.Noted by Cantor 2001:175, who observes that Gentile also used gold and ground gemstones in medications and recommended amulets.
|
|
R. Palmer, "Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice in the Sixteenth Century," in The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1985) p. 108 online. Maranta conducted experiments in the natural history museum of Ferrante Imperato on the proportion of wine needed to dissolve the ingredients for theriac, claiming that "it preserves the healthy" and "cures the sick." But theriac was a controversial drug; in the 1570s, two physicians were expelled from the College of Physicians in Brescia for overprescribing it, and Maranta had to fend off criticism for substituting an ingredient in the formula.
|
|
Ryszard Ganszyniec (Posen, 1920). Hence, remedies made of contemptible creatures contained greater medicinal virtues than such ‘precious' drugs like theriac (which to Nicholas was just snake meat). Nicholas invoked the authority of ‘master Albert’ to confirm his doctrine, a reference to the popular De mirabilibus mundi (On the Miracles of the World) attributed to Albertus Magnus.
|
|
216 (note 34) . having been used since time immemorial to produce an alkali soap and as an electuary in compounding theriac for use in treating scorpion stings,Suessman Muntner (ed.), Maimonides' Treatise on Poisons and their Antidotes (Based on Paris 1211 Manuscript), Philadelphia 1966, p. 30 (section 5). as well as for extracting potassium for other medicinal uses.
|
|
Schoenus or Schoinos () was a city in ancient Boeotia, located east of Thebes. Schoenus is mentioned by Homer as part of Thersander's domain in the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad. Schoenus is placed by Strabo upon a river of the same name in the territory of Thebes, upon the road to Anthedon, and at the distance of 50 stadia from Thebes.Nicander, Theriac.
|
|
The 11th-century Suda lexicon states that Galen died at the age of 70, which would place his death in about the year 199. However, there is a reference in Galen's treatise "On Theriac to Piso" (which may, however, be spurious) to events of 204. There are also statements in Arabic sourcesAmari, M. Biblioteca Arabo-sicula, 2nd vol., Loscher, Turin, Rome, p. 503-504.
|
|
"Allium sativum," (on- line text). The word theriac comes from the Greek term θηριακή (thēriakē), a feminine adjective signifying "pertaining to animals",. from θηρίον (thērion), "wild animal, beast".. The ancient bestiaries included information—often fanciful—about dangerous beasts and their bites. When cane sugar was an exotic Eastern commodity, the English recommended the sugar-based treacle as an antidote against poison, originally applied as a salve.
|
|
Al-Tamimi, the physician (d. 990) became renown for his skills in compounding medicines, especially theriac, an antidote for poisons. His works, many of which no longer survive, are cited by later physicians. Taking what was known at the time by the classical Greek writers, Al-Tamimi expanded on their knowledge of the properties of plants and minerals, becoming avant garde in his field.
|
|
The Tang pharmacologist Su Kung noted that it had proved its usefulness against "the hundred ailments." Whether this panacea contained the traditional ingredients such as opium, myrrh and hemp, is not known. In the Middle East, theriac was known as Tiryaq, and makers of it were known as Tiryaqi. In medieval London, the preparation arrived on galleys from the Mediterranean, under the watchful eye of the Worshipful Company of Grocers.
|
|
According to legends, the history of theriac begins with the king Mithridates VI of Pontus who experimented with poisons and antidotes on his prisoners. His numerous toxicity experiments eventually led him to declare that he had discovered an antidote for every venomous reptile and poisonous substance. He mixed all the effective antidotes into a single one, mithridatium or mithridate. Mithridate contained opium, myrrh, saffron, ginger, cinnamon and castor, along with some forty other ingredients.
|
|
In his Natural History, Pliny gives a list of scenarios in which garlic was considered beneficial (N.H. xx. 23). Galen, writing in the second century, eulogized Garlic as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all) (see F. Adams' Paulus Aegineta, p. 99). Avicenna, in The Canon of Medicine (1025), recommends garlic for the treatment of a wide variety of ailments including arthritis, snake and insect bites, parasites, chronic cough, and as antibiotic for infectious diseases.
|
|
Modern drug regulation has historical roots in the response to the proliferation of universal antidotes which appeared in the wake of Mithridates' death. Mithridates had brought together physicians, scientists, and shamans to concoct a potion that would make him immune to poisons. Following his death, the Romans became keen on further developing the Mithridates potion's recipe. Mithridatium re-entered western society through multiple means. The first was through the Leechbook of the Bald (Bald's Leechbook), written somewhere between 900 and 950, which contained a formula for various remedies, including for a theriac.
|
|
When the Romans defeated him, his medical notes fell into their hands and Roman medici began to use them. Emperor Nero's physician Andromachus improved upon mithridatum by bringing the total number of ingredients to sixty-four, including viper's flesh, a mashed decoction of which, first roasted then well aged, proved the most constant ingredient.Norman F. Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It made(New York: Harper) 2001: 174ff. Lise Manniche, however, links the origins of theriac to the ancient Egyptian kyphi recipe, which was also used medicinally.
|
|
It was necessary that a beleaguered Starkey reestablish his financial footing, restore his reputation, and attract new patronage. The final years of Starkey's life were devoted to resurrecting his medical practice and manufacturing income-producing medicines. However, he never wandered far from his chymistry lab and his quest for Van Helmont's alchahest or the philosophers' stone. No doubt he continued his search for the perfect liquor alchahest, a medicinal solvent whose purpose was similar to theriac, an antidotal compound that was consumed to preserve health and prevent illness.
|
|
Academic controversies over the authenticity of Ji Han's Nanfang caomu zhuang been ongoing for over a century. The first scholar to question the text's authenticity was Wen Dingshi (文廷式, 1856-1904), who said Ji Han could not have been the author because the theriac entry (19, tr. Li 1979: 64) says the physician Liu Juanzi (劉涓子, fl. 410), "used this plant to prepare pills and after taking them, attained immortality"; which is likely a copyist's mistake for the Daoist Juanzi (涓子) mentioned in the (c. 1st century BCE) Liexian Zhuan (Ma 1978: 234).
|
|
Commenting on De pulsibus, he connected the relationship between fast pulse rate and urine output and correlated the color of urine with the condition of the heart. For the originality of his thought Mario Timio suggestedMario Timio, "Gentile da Foligno, a Pioneer of Cardionephrology: Commentary on Carmina de urinarum iudiciis and De pulsibus", American Journal of Nephrology 19 (1999:189-192) (on-line abstract). that Gentile could be indicated as the 'first' cardionephrologist in the history of medicine. He prepared a widely read treatise on the Black Death, recommending theriac among other prophylaxis, but died of the plague himself.
|
|
Orvietan was a concoction of partially toxic herbs, wine, and dissolved honey, but existed in powdered form too (sold in lead boxes). Patrizia Catellani and Renzo Console analyzed 35 different recipes for mixing orvietan, published between 1655 and 1857. The number of ingredients varies from 9 to 57. The most frequent 26 ingredients are: garden angelica, healing wolfsbane, birthwort, bistort, sweet flag, Carline thistle, dittany, gentian, masterwort, black salsify, tormentil, valerian, blessed thistle, dittany of Crete, rue, germander, laurel berries, juniper berries, cinnamon, cloves, viper meat, and the two concoctions mithridate and theriac, as well as white wine and honey.
|
|
24 He specialized in compounding simple drugs and medicines, but is especially known for his having concocted a theriac reputed as a proven antidote in snakebite and other poisons, which he named tiryaq al- fārūq (the antidote of salvation)Said, H.M. & Elahie R.E. (1973), p. 88. According to Al-Biruni (1973), "Faruq means a thing that relieves, or something that acts as a vanguard against poison." Others explain this word to mean, "the one who distinguishes between the right and the wrong," in this case, between life and death, or disease and health (See: Ibn Sa'ad, The Book of the Major Classes [Tabaqat al-Kubra], 3/ p. 281; Lane, E.W. (1968), VI, 2386 because of its exceptional qualities.
|
|
Additionally, theriac became a commercial good traded throughout Europe based on the works of Greek and Roman physicians. The resulting proliferation of various recipes needed to be curtailed in order to ensure that people were not passing off fake antidotes, which led to the development of government involvement and regulation. Additionally, the creation of these concoctions took on ritualistic form and were often created in public and the process was observed and recorded. It was believed that if the concoction proved unsuccessful, it was due to the apothecaries’ process of making them and they could be held accountable because of the public nature of the creation. In the 9th century, many Muslim countries established an office of the hisba, which in addition to regulating compliance to Islamic principles and values took on the role of regulating other aspects of social and economic life, including the regulation of medicines.
|
|
Elaborately gilded drug jar for storing mithridate. By Annibale Fontana, about 1580–90 Mithridate, also known as mithridatium, mithridatum, 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 Eupator of Pontus in the 1st century BC. It was one of the most complex, highly sought-after drugs during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly in Italy and France, where it was in continual use for centuries. An updated recipe called theriac (Theriacum Andromachi) was known well into the 19th century."Mithridate". Mithridate takes its name from its inventor, Mithridates VI, King of Pontus (134 to 63 BC) 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, and, according to some legends, had to ask a soldier to run him through with a sword.
|
|