Antidote for Disappointment: reflection on Mithridatum
Well, Wednesday night I took my collections of herbs and spices to discuss the history of Mithridatum as I discussed in my last post. Or, as my brother accused me, to have show-and-tell. … And there were only two attendees. … And one of them had to leave early.
This is always a risk as the semester continues. Students have to prioritise assignments over extra-curricular activities.
When I finished with Victoria, has been assisting in arranging these events for a few years now, we decided that we would try run this same discussion first up in the next semester. Despite this intention, I had kind of promised an additional blog addressing matters discussed, and so here it is.
Fresh vs Dried Ingredients- what this might mean for volumes
I had thought that the volume of dried herbs would make a larger volume than fresh. Quite often when looking at herbs, the volume of a dried weight As I mentioned in my previous post, I became curious as to how fresh parsley might compare to dried. So, here’s a photographic comparison between 1 drachma (3.4 grams) weight of dried parsley and 1 drachma of chopped fresh parsley. I was surprised that they were as close in size as they were. I was expecting the moisture content of fresh parsley to make it a significantly smaller amount. Now, it is impossible to for a photograph to convey the difference between these two. I think the dried parsley includes a great deal more product than the fresh because it is finer. It should also be noted that fresh parsley is far more fragrant than dried. Of course, after I composted my fresh parsley, I thought maybe I ought to have crushed it in my mortar and pestle. Maybe I will do that when I present this material next semester.
One drachma weight of dried and fresh chopped parsley
One drachma weight of dried and fresh unchopped parsley
So dried parsley is an extremely different ingredient to fresh parsley. Parsley features in four of the Mithridatum recipes I have found: Celsus (5.23.3); Andromachus’ Mithridatic Antidote (Galen, On Antidotes II.1 Kühn 14.107-8); Mithridatum of Antipater and Cleophantes (Galen, On Antidotes II.1 Kühn 14.108-9); and Damocrates’ Mithridatum (Galen, On Antidotes II.2 Kühn 14.115-7). And while fresh parsley might be more fragrant, I still think dried parsley and other herbs were more probably used because they would give Mithridatum a longer shelf-life.
Reflections on the Shelf-Life of Mithridatum
I should point out that Mithridatum was not a cheap product to produce or purchase. According to the Medicina Plinii (3.33.1-2)Doctors praise the Mithridatic antidote and they publish their different compositions, and they demand vast amounts of money for recommending expensive mixtures because of their rarity. For they weigh each pound (libra) for twenty-thousand sesterces, and they defraud the credulity of unfortunate people also with this trick so that they persuade them to buy that which harms them.
This amount converts into 5,000 silver denarii. This amount might have been the subject of hyperbole, as this was an attack against the use of expensive compound drugs by doctors. While we cannot be sure of the exact date of composition of the Medicina Plinii, Kai Brodersen has argued for a date around the early third century CE. While we cannot be sure of the price of ingredients used in Mithridatum at that particular time, we do have some ideas earlier and later costs of some of the common ingredients, looking at Pliny’s Natural History, so costs probably from the 70s CE, and the inscriptional Diocletian’s Price Edict of 301 CE. While there is a great deal of debate about whether the Price Edict actually reflects real prices, it still gives us a “ball-park” figure of what government thought might be reasonable. Comparisons of these prices are interesting, sometimes surprising, and might actually reflect changes in how eastern spices and materia medica were traded with the Mediterranean over time. These prices are all given per pound (libra).
- Cinnamon: Pliny 1000-1500 denarii - Price Edict 125 denarii. This is quite a reduction and might benefit from a closer look at the sources and what is known about the cinnamon trade.
- Frankincense (finest quality): Pliny 6 denarii - Price Edict 100 denarii.
- Myrrh: Pliny records various prices depending on source from 3 to 40 denarii - Price Edict 400 denarii.
- Storax: Pliny 17 denarii - Price Edict 500 or 200 denarii depending on source.
- Cassia: Pliny 5-50 denarii depending on quality - Price Edict 120 denarii.
- Ginger: Pliny 6 denarii - Price Edict differentiates between “prepared” which might cost 50 or 400 (this is from the Greek copy of the Edict and it isn’t 100% clear if the number is ν´ or υ´) denarii and “dried” which was 250. Please note that I have not found any explanation as to what “prepared” here means, but I find it improbable that this would be the later popular crystallised ginger which was imported into Europe when Arabic pharmacology became known. Maybe it was dried and ground.
Whatever was being used, regardless of its cost, I think an argument can be made that all ingredients were shelf-stable, and thus dried herbs were used, even when they weren’t explicitly described as such in recipes. According to the Price Edict, the most expensive common ingredient for which we have a record was saffron, costing between 600 and 2000 denarii per libra, depending on its source. Taking the most expensive variety, sourced from Arabia, the cost of a pound of Mithridatum might have been two-and-a-half times the cost of its most expensive ingredient.
Who says pharmaceutical mark-ups are a modern phenomenon?
So, spoilage of this compound drugs would result in a huge financial loss for the doctor. I did some work on just how much Mithridatum these completely recorded recipes made. All of these amounts use the active ingredients without the honey or wine and have been rounded to the nearest gram:
- Antidote of Mithridates Eupator called “through skinks” - 273.8 drachmae / 931 grams
- Damocrates’ Mithridatum - 256 drachmae / 870 grams
- Andromachus’ Mithridatic Antidote - 222.8 drachmae / 758 grams
- Celsus, Mithridatum - 175 denarii / 595 grams (this uses Brodersen’s suggestion that denarii and drachmae weights be considered close to the same).
- Mithridatum of Antipater and Cleophantes - 248.4 drachmae / 844 grams.
A Roman pound weighs something between 322 and 329 grams, so each of these recipes with the exception of Celsus, made more than two pounds of Mithridatum. So if your ingredients were not shelf-stable, you could lose more than 10,000 denarii.
How long should its shelf-life be? That’s difficult to say. Galen does not give dosages. The most explicit description of how Mithridatum was compounded and given to patients comes from Scribonius Largus’ Compositions, whose recipe is unfortunately incomplete. He states:
Sprinkle with Attic honey and Chian wine until it has the consistency of honey. It is kept in a glass container. But it is given thus when dangerous drugs are taken: an amount the size of an Egyptian bean in six cyathi of unmixed wine if possible; if too little, mix four unmixed cyathi daily; in honeyed wine if a snake strike was given, for when the liver is hard or they are jaundiced, and for those we otherwise desire to move urine. But the amount of a local bean for coughing, laboured eyes, and side pain. For other abdominal pain, the amount of a chickpea. For feverishness [malarial] - for it is possible for these - the amount of a vetch before the onset of fever. For those suffering neck cramps, tetanus, cramping seizures - for it helps with these - the amount of a lupin, but with three cyathi of water.
I find these measurements fascinating. Obviously, all people capable of compounding and giving Mithridatum know the size of various beans and grains. I also find it curious that these dosages are given in volumes, not weights. This is part of the reason why I think showing people the volume these ingredients are important. According to John Scarborough, an Egyptian bean is around 4 grams, described in relation to another compound drug, but if a weight was an appropriate dose, the recipes would use a weight. It does however suggest that each time the recipes were compounded, they could contain hundreds of doses. This would suggest, the doctor would like it to last a reasonable length of time, as its expense limited the potential patients. The use of dried herbs would definitely have managed to expand the shelf-life of Mithridatum.
We know that there is the potential for compound drugs to spoil.
Thoughts For Next Time
Well, as I have said, perhaps I ought to pound up the parsley to get a better idea about the difference in volume of fresh versus dried ingredients. I would also have time to purchase edible carrot seeds which are included in all Mithridatum recipes to add to my collection. Perhaps I should also try get either dimensions or examples of the dosage descriptors: Egyptian bean, Roman bean (I assume they must be different), vetch, chickpea, and also a Greek nut, although most people know the size of an almond.
In any case, I will hoping for more attendees than Wednesday.
Bibliography
Galen. (1827) Galeni Opera Omnia, Tomus 14. Ed. Kühn, D. Leipzig: Car. Cnoblochii.
Hunt, Yvette. (2020) The Medicina Plinii: Latin Text, Translation, and Commentary. London: Routledge.
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