Brewer's: Mithridate

(3 syl.). A confection said to be invented by Mithridates, King of Pontus and Bithynia, as an antidote to poison. It contains seventy-two ingredients.

“What brave spirit could be content to sit in his shop ... selling Mithridatum and dragon's water to infected houses?” —Knight of the Burning Pestle. (1635.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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