THE 



345 



THE 



poison.' However, Pompey seems to have been possessed 

 with the vulgar opinion ; and, after he had conquered this 

 kins, he took uncommon care to secure his writings, in 

 hopes of some mighty treasures of natural knowledge. He 

 was soon convinced of what he might easily have foreseen ; 

 and is represented as laughing at the disappointment of 

 his own credulity, when, instead of those great arcana, he 

 only found one or two trifling receipts : 



' Autidotns vero multis Mitliridatica fertur 

 Consociata modis: sod Magnus, scriuia regis 

 Quiim raperet victor, vilem depremtit in illia 

 Syntlicsm, et vulgata satis medicaniina ri*il ; 

 Bis denum rutae folium, snlis et brevu yranum, 

 Jui,'landesniic <lu:i.-i, totidem cum rorpore ficus : 

 H;iri.' oiienTc die ji;irco conspersa Lyaeo 

 Sumebat, metueos dederat quae pncula muter. 1 



(Seron. Samoa-, De Medic., cap. de Venen, Prohib.') 



Soon after, however, there was published at Rome a most 

 pompous medicine under the name of Mithridates, which 

 was pretended to have been found among his papers : its 

 principal virtue was made to consist in its being a most 

 powerful preservative from all kinds of venom ; and who- 

 ever took a proper quantity of it in a morning was insured 

 against being poisoned during that whole day. (Galen, De 

 Anliil., p. 3.) By these representations it gained so great 

 ;i reputation that some of the Roman emperors prepared it 

 for themselves with their own hands : several physicians 

 among the antients employed their studies upon it in order 

 to render it more perfect ; and it has been the subject of 

 many volumes among the moderns, as well as the occasion 

 of many unaccountable medicines made in emulation of it. 

 Rut, notwithstanding the supposed improvements of the 

 antients, the original Mithridatium continued for a long 

 time to be prepared according to a receipt of Servilius 

 Damocrates, written in a short Greek iambic poem, which 

 is preserved by Galen ; DC AntiiL, lib. ii., cap. ii., torn, xiv., 

 p. 115, sq.), arid which has been published, together with 

 her poems, Greek and Latin, Bonnae, 1833, 4to., edited 



!'. Harless. 



Andromachus the Elder (who was physician to the 

 emperor Xero, and the first person who is known to 

 h:i\c revived the title of Archinter) made considerable 

 :;ions in the Mithridatium by omitting some of the 

 'lients, adding others (especially the dried flesh of 

 , and by increasing the proportion of opium. His 

 ) was embodied in a Greek elegiac poem, in order 

 that it might be the more easily preserved without altera- 

 tion ; and this has been inserted by Galen in two of his 

 works (De Antid., lib. i., cap. vi., et De Ther. ad Pison., 

 <. li , and has been frequently published in a separate form. 

 Andromachus likewise changed the name of the Mithrida- 

 tium thus reformed to yaXtjvij ; but in Trajan's time it ob- 

 1 that of ' Theriaca,' either from the vipers in it, or 

 from its good effects in curing the bites of venomous ani- 

 mals. (Galen, DC. Antid., lib. i., cap. 6 ; De Ther. ad 

 I'l^'in., cap. 5, torn, xiv., pp, 32,232.) The reputation 

 enjoyed by this drug was immense, and surpassed even 

 that of the Mithridatium. The emperor Marcus Aurelius 

 Antoninus was in the habit of taking a small quantity out 

 of honey every morning, and was imitated in this practice 

 by many of his courtiers (Galen, Da Antid., lib. i., cap. 4, 

 p. 24) ; "but at last, finding that it made him drowsy and 

 lethargic, he left, out the juice of the poppy. (Id., ibid., 

 cap. i., p. 4.) From that time to the present it has more 

 or less maintained its credit, though upon no principle of 

 combination can this heterogeneous farrago be vindicated; 

 and though it has scarcely ever continued the same for a 

 hundred years together. Celsus is the first who describes 

 this medicine (De Medic., lib. v., cap. 23) ; and according to 

 him it consists of thirty-eight simples. Before Nero's time, 

 five of these were struck out, and twenty others added. 

 Soon after, Andromachus, leaving out six ingredients, and 

 adding twenty-eight, increased the sum total to seventy- 

 five. Aetius, in the fifth century after Christ (Tetrab., iv., 

 Serin, i., cap. 87, sq., p. 648, ed. H. Steph.), and Nicolaus 

 Myrepsus, in the twelfth (De Compos. Medicam., sec. xxii., 

 cap. l., p. 639, ed. H. Steph.), give us very different de- 

 scriptions of it ; and since that time it has been in a state 

 of perpetual fluctuation, the alterations that it has under- 

 gone by accident being as great as those which have been 

 made in it. For of the simples that antiently 

 composed it, several are utterly unknown ; others are only 

 guessed at with great uncertainty, and some very errone- 

 ously, as might easily be shown, and were so even in Pliny s 

 P. C-., No. 1531. 



time (Hist. Nat., lib. xxiv., cap. 1). In the Pharma- 

 copoeia of the London College of Physicians both the 

 Mithridatium and the Theriaca Andromachi retained their 

 places certainly as late as the year 1771 ; and the edition 

 of 1788 is the earliest in which the writer has found it. to 

 be omitted. Its rejection was proposed by the late Dr. 

 Heberden (who wrote a little work on the subject, entitled 

 ' 'AvTiOripiuicd : an Essay on Mithridatium and Theriaca,' 

 1745, 8vo., pp. 19) ; and upon the College dividing on th<; 



sive Pharmacopoeia Gallica,' published at Paris, 4to., 1818, 

 this preparation appeared under the appropriate title of 

 ' Electuarium Opiatum Polypharmacum.' It consisted of 

 seventy-two ingredients, which were arranged under thir- 

 teen heads,viz. : 1, Acria, of which there were five species ; 

 2, Amara, of which there were eight ; 3, Saporis Styptici, 

 \\i\goAftringentia, five in number ; 4, Aromatica Exotica, 

 fourteen ; 5, Aromatica Indigena, ten ; 6, Aromatica ex 

 Umbelliferis, seven ; 7, Resinosa et Bahama, eight ; S, 

 Graveolentia, six ; 9,I~irosa, ' sen quae Narcosin inducunt,' 

 of which there was only one species, viz. Opium The- 

 baicum ; 10, Terrea insipida et inertia, consisting also of 

 only one species, viz. Terra Lemnia ; 11, Gurnmosa, Amy- 

 lacen, fyc., four in number ; 12, Dulcia, consisting of Succus 

 Glycyrrhizae and Mel Narbonense ; and, 13, Vinum, or 

 Sherry. An analysis of two ounces of this compound, by 

 M. Guilbert, is given, pp. 324, 325, note ; and we are told 

 that one drachm of it contains rather less than one gram of 

 opium. In the last edition of the ' Codex, Pharmacop6e 

 Frai^aise,' published at Paris, 4to., 1837, under the au- 

 thority of a commission de redaction, of which M. Orfila 

 was the president, the medicine still appears, and under its 

 old name Theriaca : and this, notwithstanding the many 

 improvements that have been introduced, and the number 

 of similar compounds that have been expelled. (Preface, 

 pp. xvi., xvii.) The composition appears to be very nearly 

 if not, exactly the same as in the previous edition, but the 

 ingredients are not divided into heads as before. In some 

 parts of Europe the mode of preparing this drug was 

 reckoned among the mysteries of the state, which it was 

 forbidden to divulge : and for some centuries that which 

 came from Venice was particularly valued. 



For further information see Heberden's Antitheriaca 

 (from which work great part of these observations are 

 taken) ; Paris'* Pharmacotogia ; and also Earth, i Ma- 

 ranta, De Theriaca et Mithridatio Libri Duo, &c., Francof., 

 1576, 12mo. ; Nic. Stelliola, Theria.ce et Mithridntia, 

 Neap., 1577, 4to. ; Jo. Bapt. Sylvaticus, De Compositions 

 et Usu. Theriacae Andromachi, Heidelb., 1597, 8vo. ; 

 Anton. Berthiolus, Idea Theriacae et Mithridatii, Venet.. 

 1601, 4to. ; El. Bonvinius, De Theriaca liber ex Andro- 

 machi Senioris Mente, Vratislav., 1610, 8vo. ; J. Assuerus 

 Ampzing, De Mnrborum Differentia, et de Theriaca Se- 

 nioris Andromachi, Rostock, 1623, 8vo. ; Angel. Bolzctta, 

 Theriaca Andromachi Senioris, &c., Patav., 1626, 4to. ; 

 Charas, Traite de la Thcriaque, Paris, 1668, 12mo., 

 quoted by Choulant, Handbuch der Biicherhuiide fiir die 

 Aeltere Medicin. 



THERIS'TICUS, Wagler's name for a genus of birds. 

 TANTALUS, Gm. 



THERMAE. [BATHS ; ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.] 



THERMO-ELECTRICITY is a name given to the fluid 

 excited by heat in conducting substances, as wires or bars 

 of metal, generally of different kinds, when they are placed 

 in close contact with each other, end to end, and disposed 

 so as to form a periphery or continuous circuit. Since the 

 effects of heat applied to the ends, or junctions, of the 

 bars are made manifest by a magnetized and balanced 

 needle deviating from its usual position in consequence of 

 the application, thermo-electricity is considered as a 

 branch of electro-magnetism ; and it may be said to be 

 connected with the electricity which is excited by heat in 

 tourmaline, boracite, and some other minerals. The dis- 

 covery of the principle was made in 1822, by Dr. Seebeck 

 of Berlin, while engaged in researches concerning electro- 

 magnetism, which but two years before had been discovered 



and the name was 

 er in order to 



by Professor Oersted of Copenhagen ; and 

 given to the fluid by the latter philosoph 

 distinguish it from that which is produced by the usual 

 galvanic apparatus, which he proposed to call hydro- 



Vor-.XXIV.-2Y 



