Mithridates VI, commonly called “the Great,” King of Pontus in Asia
Minor, was born 134 B.C., and succeeded his father on the
throne at the age of twelve. Next to Hannibal he was the most
troublesome foe the Roman Republic had to deal with. His several wars
with that power occupied twenty-six years of his life. Sylla, Lucullus,
and Pompey, in succession, led Roman armies against him, and gained
battles again and again, but he was only at last completely conquered
by the last-named general after long and costly efforts.
Mithridates was a valiant soldier and a skilful general, but a monster
of cruelty. He was apparently a learned man, or at least one who
took interest in learning. The fable of his medicinal secrets took
possession of the imagination of the Romans. They were especially
attracted by the stories of his famous antidote. According to some he
invented this himself; others say the secret was communicated to him by
a Persian physician named Zopyrus. Celsus states that a physician of
this name gave a similar secret to one of the Egyptian Ptolemies. This
may have been the same Zopyrus, for Mithridates lived in the time of
the Ptolemies. The Egyptian antidote was handed down to us under the
name of Ambrosia.
When Pompey had finally defeated Mithridates he took possession of a
quantity of the tyrant’s papers at Nicopolis, and it was reported that
among these were his medicinal formulas. Mithridates meanwhile was
seeking help to prosecute the war. But his allies, his own son, and his
soldiers were all tired of him. In his despair he poisoned his wife and
daughters, and then took poison himself. But according to the legend,
propagated perhaps by some clever advertising quacks in Rome, he had so
successfully immunised his body to the effects of all poisons that they
would now take no effect. Consequently he had to call in the assistance
of a Gallic soldier, who despatched his chief with a spear. The story
of his defeat and death are historic; the poison story is legend which,
however it was originated, was no doubt good value in the drug stores
of Rome, where the confection of Mithridates was soon sold. As will
be stated immediately there is abundant reason to believe that the
alleged formula which Pompey was said to have discovered and to have
had translated was devised at home.
In 1745 when a new London Pharmacopœia was nearly ready for issue,
a scholarly exposure of the absurdity of the compound which still
occupied space in that and in all other official formularies, along
with its equally egregious companion, Theriaca, was published by Dr.
William Heberden, a leading physician of the day, and though it was too
late to cause the deletion of the formulas in the edition of 1746, that
was the last time they appeared in the Pharmacopœia, though they had
been given in all the issues of that work from 1618 onwards. No better
completion of the history of this preparation can be given than that
which Dr. Heberden wrote 165 years ago. The King of Pontus, he assumed,
like many other ancient royalties, was pleased to affect special skill
in the production of medicines, and it is not surprising that his
courtiers should have flattered him on this accomplishment. Thus the
opinion prevailed among his enemies as well as in his own kingdom that
his achievements in pharmacy approached the miraculous. His conqueror,
Pompey, apparently shared the popular belief, and took uncommon care in
the ransack of his effects, after Mithridates had been compelled to fly
from the field, to secure for himself his medical writings. According
to Quintus Serenus Samonicus, however, the Roman general was amused at
his own credulity when, instead of a vast and precious arcana he found
himself in possession of only a few trifling and worthless receipts.
[Illustration: DR. WILLIAM HEBERDEN. 1710-1801.
(From a mezzotint in the British Museum.)
]
The anticipation of some marvellous secrets was so universal, and the
Roman publishers so well disposed to cater for this, that it is not
to be wondered at that a confection of Mithridates and stories of
its miraculous power soon found their way into literature. A pompous
formula, which it was professed had been discovered among the papers
of Mithridates captured by Pompey came to be known under the title of
Antidotum Mithridatium. It is noteworthy that Plutarch, who in his life
of Pompey mentions that certain love letters and documents helping to
interpret dreams were among these papers, makes no allusion to the
medical recipe; while Samonicus states explicitly that, notwithstanding
the many formulæ which had got into circulation pretending to be
that of the genuine confection, the only one found in the cabinet of
Mithridates was a trivial one for a compound of 20 leaves of rue, 1
grain of salt, 2 nuts, and 2 dried figs. So that, Dr. Heberden remarks,
the King of Pontus may have been as much a stranger to the medicine to
which his name was attached as many eminent physicians of this day are
to medicines associated with their names.
The compound, made from the probably spurious formula, however,
acquired an immense fame. Some of the Roman emperors are declared to
have compounded it with their own hands. Galen says that whoever took a
proper dose in the morning was ensured against poison throughout that
day. Great physicians studied it with a view of making it, if possible,
more perfect. The most important modification of the formula was made
by Andromachus, Nero’s physician, who omitted the scink, added vipers,
and increased the proportion of opium. He changed the name to Galene,
but this was not retained, and in Trajan’s time the name of Theriaca
was the accepted designation, a title which has lasted throughout the
subsequent centuries.
Dr. Heberden’s criticism of the composition is as effective now as
when he wrote, but it should be remembered that in his day there was a
Theriacal party in medicine; to us the comments seem obvious. He points
out that in the formula as it then appeared in the Pharmacopœia no
regard was had to the known virtues of the simples, nor to the rules of
artful composition. There was no foundation for the wonderful stories
told concerning it, and the utmost that could then be said of it was
that it was a diaphoretic, “which is commonly the virtue of a medicine
which has none.”
But even if undesigning chance did happen to hit upon a mixture which
possessed such marvellous virtues, what foundation was there, he asked,
for believing that any other fortuitous concourse of ingredients would
be similarly successful? This preparation had scarcely continued the
same for a hundred years at a time. According to Celsus, who first
described it, it consisted of thirty-eight simples. Before the time
of Nero five of these had been struck out and twenty new ones added.
Andromachus omitted six and added twenty-eight; leaving seventy-five
net. Aetius in the fifth century, and Myrepsus in the twelfth gave
very different accounts of it, and since then the formulas had been
constantly fluctuating. Some of the original ingredients were, Dr.
Heberden said, utterly unknown in his time; others could only be
guessed at. About a century previously a dispute about Balm of Gilead,
which was one of the constituents, had been referred to the Pope, who,
however, prudently declined to exercise his infallibility on this
subject.
Authorities were not agreed whether it was better old or new. Galen
said the virtue of the opium was mitigated by keeping; Juncker said it
fermented, and by fermentation the power of the opium was exalted three
or fourfold.