Even in the 17th century, diseases caused by poisons and contagions were combined into one category and treated with theriac. Arab doctors practising in medieval Europe did not bring new content to the knowledge of antidotes, limiting themselves to copying Galen’s thoughts, including those about theriac as a means of preventing a plague. Theriac had to be taken constantly to ensure resistance to various diseases. He argued that as poison entered the body through the mouth, the evil entered from the air with the breath, therefore the administration of a universal antidote was justified. Due to the similarities between the violent reaction of the human body to animal venoms and symptoms of the plague, Galen treated contagion victims with theriac. Theriac, the ‘cleansing fire’ produced from cowbane, aconite and black henbane, among others, was a remedy for the most dangerous poisonous plants and animal venoms. Some of them, such as cowbane and hellebore, were food for animals, but were harmful to humans, thus endangering their lives. In the treatise entitled ‘De antidotes’, he noticed the dual nature of plants. Galen’s observations of the victims of venomous animals shaped the paradigm of poison, a substance that can cause a deterioration of health or even death when absorbed or introduced into the human body. This is how Theriac Andromachi was made, the first anti-venom antidote, used for people bitten by snakes and other wild animals (Greek θηριακός, thēriakós, means ‘concerning venomous beasts’) living in the vast territory of the Roman Empire. In the 1st century AD, its composition was modified by Andromachus the Elder, Nero’s physician, who added dozens of new ingredients to mithridate, including viper meat, which was commonly considered as an antidote to snake venom. ![]() The first universal antidote was mithridate, in which after taking it an increasingly strong dose response was induced. In the 1st century AD, Galen (129–200) confirmed that the ingredients of the antidote, which Mithridates VI took in less and less diluted doses to become resistant to poisons, was a preparation mix produced by Medea in Colchis. They still grow in Georgia, such as: autumn crocus ( Colchicum autumnale), hemlock ( Conium maculatum), cowbane ( Cicuta vulgaris vel virosa), belladonna ( Atropa belladonna), black henbane ( Hyoscyamus niger) and white veratrum ( Veratrum album). She produced poisons and medicines from local plants. Some light is shed on its composition by the myth of the Argonauts’ expedition to the land of Aja (identical to Colchis), where an enchantress Medea lived. Its inhabitants were able to produce plant extracts and thicken them into a concentrate called ‘the poison’ and used in high dilutions as a medicine. ![]() Among the territories he conquered, the most important was Colchis (a region of today’s Georgia), providing the Kingdom of Pontus with human resources and raw materials. ![]() Tradition attributes its invention to Mithridates VI (135–63 BC), the king of Pontus, but this is a simplification. The term ‘antidote’ comes from the Greek word ἀντίδoτoν (antídoton), derived from ἀντί (antí, ‘against’) and δίδωμι (dídōmi, ‘I give’).
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