Show DRUGS FEARFUL AND AWFUL amazing concoctions Concoct ions that our ances tors swallowed believing that they had medicinal virtues the medicines used down to even recent days sound most extraordinary to our ears As late as the eighteenth century dried toad was seriously considered it a specific against the plague plagne in an article in the new york medical journal dr william renwick riddell of toronto canada mentioned ment lonel a few of the remedies in vogue A plaster made of arsenic was art ap plied piled to cancers bleeding was on all occasions even in the time of our grandparents but the sovereign remedy of all was known as or ther laca this was the great antidote of roman pher i macy it originally had 40 or 50 ingredients gred lents all vegetables but neros physician Andro machus added the flesh of vipers every physician had bad its his own variation of the formula and Mat catterill terill in n the sixteenth century put it no less t than an ingredients into it the name ther laca or ther lac under which it was commonly known was derived from the greek therion 1 I a wild beast as the stuff was considered a specific against the poisonous onous bites of beasts and serpents the french word ther laque was corrupted into the english treacle and the medicine was known in england as aej venice treacle it was the famous sydenham hant who first opposed the use tile of dru drugs q in fact when sir richard blackmore asked him tor for a good guide in practice lie replied don quixote and declared that the arrival of a good clown would do more for the health of a city than that of 20 asses laden with drugs |