Mithridate

Statema, B. C. P.

Compound

Mithridate

Mitridato

Known today as: The antidote attributed by legend to Mithridates VI of Pontus, the forerunner of theriac.
Kind: Compound, in 4 older authorities
Constituents: morphine, myrrh, saffron, castoreum, costus, cinnamon, cassia, agaric, rhubarb, gentian, and 1 more
Poisoning: Opioid poisoning
Earliest authority here: Pliny (AD 23/24–79)
In the Canale glossary: On the Manner of Discerning and Healing the Bewitched, Appendix A: Part Three, Chapter 6: Remedies Given by Mouth After the Purge

Revised October 3, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. Checked against its sources, each read in full, in part, or in its abstract. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.

Mithridate: what did Canale use it for?

In the cockerel (ch. 6; note XLIII).

Mithridate: what does modern science say?

As theriac. Heberden found no poison that it would counteract any further than plain opium would; and the practice of small doses, mithridatism, is not effective against all poisons, immunity being generally possible only against the biologically complex ones. The king himself, in Appian’s account, took poison in 63 BC when his army went over to his son Pharnaces, could not die of it because he had accustomed himself to drugs against poisoners, and had Bituitus, an officer of the Gauls, kill him.

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Constituents

morphine ChEMBLfrom the opium, at a smaller share than in theriac
myrrh, saffron, castoreum, costus, cinnamon, cassiathe aromatics
agaric, rhubarb, gentian
honey and wine

Mechanism

Mithridates’ antidote as Celsus gives it had some three dozen ingredients, Pliny’s fifty-four, and Galen’s forty-one: the opium is what acted, and Heberden held that such compounds were now given chiefly as opiates and aromatics, counteracting no poison further than plain opium would. Hudson reports the historian Annette Bierman’s view that the balsamic ingredients may have been slightly antiseptic and any effect against poisoning purely psychosomatic.

Checked against ChEMBL

morphine: ChEMBL’s curated mechanism: agonist Mu-type opioid receptor.

Toxic dose

Celsus gives a piece the size of an almond in wine against poisoning; Culpeper a scruple or half a dram in the morning, two drams to sweat. Heberden warned that the prescriber lay at the mercy of the mixer for how much opium a dose held.

Syndrome

Opioid poisoning

Standing

Dropped from the Edinburgh and London pharmacopoeias in the later eighteenth century, after Heberden’s attack on it (1745), though theriacs were kept in the pharmacopoeias of France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany well into the nineteenth.

Heberden, W. (1745). Antitheriaka: An Essay on Mithridatium and Theriaca. Read in full · the text read
Totelin, L. M. V. (2004). “Mithridates’ antidote: a pharmacological ghost.” Early Science and Medicine 9. Verified against its record · doi:10.1163/1573382041153179

The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.

Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.

What Medicine Makes of It

The Universal AntidoteBezoar, unicorn, and theriac against every poison, and what replaced them.

Mithridate: what lore surrounds it?

Pliny already scoffed that the Mithridatic antidote had fifty-four ingredients, none in the same proportion and some measured to the sixtieth part of a denarius, “a vain ostentation of scientific skill.” Like theriac it was compounded in public in city squares, and in Venice, Bologna, and other cities the ingredients were displayed so that officials could check their quality. “Mithridatism,” the building of tolerance by small doses, keeps the king’s name.

The Recipe

The recipe: 4 ingredients, with the apothecaries’ weights in modern measure. For Club members. Create a free account or sign in.

Mithridate: what did the older authorities say?

Pliny: Tells how Mithridates VI of Pontus drank poison every day, with due precautions, to make himself proof against it, and was the first discoverer of antidotes, one of which keeps his name; and how Pompey found the king’s medical notes in his private cabinet, with a recipe in his own hand: two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue, pounded with a grain of salt.
Celsus: Gives the recipe: thirty-six simples in the translation, from costmary and sweet flag to saffron, ginger, and cinnamon, with castoreum and poppy-tears, pounded and taken up in honey; against poisoning “a piece the size of an almond is given in wine.” Heberden counted thirty-eight.
Andromachus: Nero’s physician left out the skink, added vipers, and increased the opium; in Trajan’s time his version took the name theriac, and Galen, who championed it, gave both in his books on antidotes.
William Heberden: In his Antitheriaka of 1745 showed the formula to be a jumble that no two authorities agreed on, In his Antitheriaka of 1745 called the formula a jumble that no two authorities or shops made alike, and the 1746 London Pharmacopoeia was the last to contain mithridate and theriac.

Sources

[62] Hudson, B. (2017). Theriac: an ancient brand? Wellcome Collection, 18 October 2017. wellcomecollection.org. Read in full · the text read

Celsus, De medicina V.23. Read in part · the text read
Heberden, W. (1745). Antitheriaka: An Essay on Mithridatium and Theriaca. Read in full · the text read
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 29.8, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. Read in full · the text read
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 25.3, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. Read in full · the text read
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 23.77, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. Read in full · the text read
Appian, The Mithridatic Wars 111, trans. H. White (1912), with notes by J. Lendering. livius.org. Read in part · the text read
Wikipedia contributors. “Mithridatism.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism (read 2 October 2026). Read in full · the text read

Verification

Checked

October 1, 2026, and October 3, 2026

Passes

Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
Every source read, in full, in part, or in its abstract, and every sentence checked against what was read (October 3, 2026)

Sources

9 cited: 6 read in full, 2 read in part, 1 verified against its record. 1 with the abstract on file.

Corrections

None were needed.

What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.

Cite This Entry

Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 3, 2026

Chicago: “Mithridate.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 3, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mithridate.
MLA: “Mithridate.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 3 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mithridate. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
APA: Mithridate. (2026, October 3). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mithridate

Download for Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley: BibTeX · RIS

Club members keep entries on a shelf with private notes, print the plates as cards, and receive an entry by email each week. Create a free account before January 1, 2027 and all of it is yours for good. About the Club