Note 1785 — BOOK XX. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE GARDEN PLANTS. (continued 2)

Or “antidote.” In this term has originated our word “treacle,” in the Elizabethan age spelt “triacle.” The medicinal virtues of this composition were believed in, Fée remarks, so recently as the latter half of the last century. The most celebrated, however, of all the “theriacæ” of the ancients, was the “Theriaca Andromachi,” invented by Andromachus, the physician of the Emperor Nero, and very similar to that composed by Mithridates, king of Pontus, and by means of which he was rendered proof, it is said, against all poisons. See a very learned and interesting account of the Theriacæ of the ancients, by Dr. Greenhill, in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. His articles “Pharmaceutica,” and “Therapeutica,” will also be found well worth attention by the reader of Pliny.