Mithridate

Mithridate, also called mithridatium, is a semi mythical remedy of as many as 65 ingredients, prepared as a universal antidote to poison and said to have been devised by Mithridates VI, king of Pontus in the first century BC, who according to legend dosed himself with antidotes and preservatives so thoroughly that no poison could kill him when he later wished to die. The recipe attributed to him was reportedly found written in his own hand and carried to Rome by Pompey, where it was translated into Latin and later revised by the physicians Andromachus under Nero and Galen under Marcus Aurelius, becoming one of the most complex and sought after drugs of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, especially in Italy and France. An updated version called theriac remained in use into the nineteenth century, and London physicians were still officially prescribing mithridate as late as 1786; the name has since come to describe any general purpose antidote.