# Viper (Vipera)

**Vipera*; *trochisci de viperis**

**Known today as.** The flesh of the viper, *Vipera* species, dried into troches.

Kind: Animal

## What was it used for?

The heart of [theriac](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/theriac): the serpent’s flesh as the antidote to poison.

## What does modern science say?

The logic was sympathy, as Culpeper says: the troches help those bitten by an adder “by a certain Sympatheticall vertue.”

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **metalloproteinases and serine proteases**: 
- **phospholipase A2**: 
- **bradykinin-potentiating peptides**: in the related *Bothrops*, the origin of captopril

**Mechanism.** The viper’s flesh in theriac was trusted by sympathy: Culpeper held that the flesh eaten, and the head of the viper that bit you bruised and laid on the bite, were the best remedy under the sun. The bite of *Vipera berus* gives swelling, vomiting, and a fall in blood pressure and has killed fourteen people in Britain since 1876, the last in 1975; antivenom is the remedy. A peptide in the venom of a Brazilian pit viper, the jararaca, gave medicine captopril, the first ACE inhibitor.

**Dose.** A bite needs a hospital, with the blood pressure watched for at least 24 hours and antivenom given for systemic envenoming.

**Standing.** Antivenom (Zagreb, ViperaTAb) is the treatment; theriac’s viper was a sympathetic ingredient.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Andromachus.** Added the viper to the old antidote of Mithridates, making the theriac of later medicine.

## Sources

- Wikipedia, “Theriac.”
- Wikipedia, “Captopril.”
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *Pharmacop ia Londinensis, or, The London Dispensatory*. London: Peter Cole. Text Creation Partnership edition A35381.
- Gondarenko, E., et al. (2026). Antivenomic and proteomic assessment of inter- and intrapopulation venom variations in Nikolsky’s adder *Vipera nikolskii*: comparison to common adder *Vipera berus*. *Journal of Proteome Research* 25: 4546–4562.
- Warrell, D. A. (2005). “Treatment of bites by adders and exotic venomous snakes.” *BMJ* 331.
- Ferreira, S. H. (1965). “A bradykinin-potentiating factor (BPF) present in the venom of *Bothrops jararaca*.” *British Journal of Pharmacology* 24.

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*Viper.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/viper

Historical description, not medical advice.