Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 908

WILLIAM HEBERDEN (1710-1801) Antitheriaka [Greek title transliterated]; An essay on mithridatium and theriaca. n. publ.] 1745 19 pp. 21.3 cm.

Called "the last of our learned physicians" by Samuel Johnson, Heberden was noted for his careful notes taken during a long practice. He spent the last twenty years of his life putting them in order and editing them for this work which was published by his son after the author's death. His most important contributions are his descriptions of angina pectoris, chicken pox, and the rheumatic nodules on the fingers now called Heberden's nodules. Theriac and mithridatium (see No. 403) can be traced to Nicander of Colophon and Mithridates, King of Pontus, in the second century B.C. Initially they were simple preparations used as antidotes for or protection against poisons and the venom of poisonous animals and, as the centuries passed, they evolved into polypharmaceuticals, often abused and misused, touted as universal remedies for all manner and variety human maladies. This pamphlet on theriac and mithridatium is thought originally to have been one of a course of lectures on materia medica given at Cambridge by Heberden in the early 1740s. He was strongly against the use of these remedies and here traces their history, development, uses, and adverse effects and takes a firm stand against their continued use. His tract was one of the first in a continuing series of protests and criticisms which ultimately led to their removal from the pharmacopoeia of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1788.

See Related Record(s): 403

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 1831; Osler 2912; Wellcome III, p. 230

Gift of John Martin, M.D.