vase for theriac, 1641 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. 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, Lise Manniche, however, links the origins of theriac to the ancient Egyptian
kyphi recipe, which was also used medicinally. Greek physician
Galen devoted a whole book,
Theriaké, to theriac, documenting many notable theriacs such as
Philonium. 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. 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. 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. In 1669, the famous French
apothecary,
Moyse Charas, published the formula for theriac, seeking to break the monopoly held by the Venetians at that time on the medication, thereby opening up the transfer of medical information. ==Production==