Overview

A revelatory account of the ""wonder drug"" theriac, which became a powerful tool in the hands of medical and political authorities at the height of the Italian Renaissance. From the 1490s, one of the most influential remedies to circulate in Europe was the ""wonder drug"" theriac. Although it had been in use for centuries, theriac gained special importance in the Renaissance, when Italy became a major hub of its production and export. A quintessential example of Galenic pharmacy, theriac was used to treat everything from venomous bites and poisons to headaches, sore throats, fevers, palsy, and heart problems. Examining this pivotal period in the history of medicine, Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore shows how a panacea became a vehicle for political power as well as intellectual and commercial competition. So essential was theriac to good health that regimes in Bologna and Venice could secure popular support by asserting regulatory control over this ""state drug."" Likewise, medical authorities relied on theriac to solidify their own legitimacy, through public ceremonies replete with music and choreography. Apothecaries and physicians engaged in spirited rivalry over branding and control of production, as well as disputes over optimal recipes, which included opium and viper flesh as well as dozens of other ingredients. Yet as Galenic science came into question in the late seventeenth century, the alliance between politics and pharmacy weakened. Physicians, in particular, grew hesitant over whether to continue promoting theriac at all. While the drug remained beloved, especially among the poor, its political power was significantly diminished by the nineteenth century. Offering a vivid window into the political history of medicine, The State Drug sheds new light on the fraught, age-old intersection of power and pharmacy.

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9780674299788

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Reviews

The State Drug takes the reader on a journey into the fascinating world of the most famous drug in Renaissance Europe: the panacea and poison antidote known as theriac. With meticulous research and elegant storytelling, Di Gennaro Splendore showcases theriac as a multifaceted medicament that prompted scientific inquiries, inspired public festivals, provoked professional rivalries, and became a key part of Italian public health. Full of entertaining anecdotes and thoughtful analysis, this book presents an important new view of early modern pharmacy. -- Alisha Rankin, author of <i>The Poison Trials: Wonder Drugs, Experiment, and the Battle for Authority in Renaissance Science</i> The wonder drug theriac, manufactured in cities like Venice from the late Renaissance, achieved a global reach and survived well into the nineteenth century. In this illuminating study, with an eye to intriguing details as well as the broader socioeconomic and political context, Di Gennaro Splendore traces theriac’s ancient and medieval past, its revival as part of the Renaissance quest for effective medicines, its state sponsorship and municipal rituals, its worldwide trade and consumption, and its eventual decline. -- David Gentilcore, author of <i>Food and Health in Early Modern Europe</i>

Author Information

Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore is a researcher specializing in the early modern history of science and medicine. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) in Padua and has been awarded an EU Marie Curie Fellowship at the ​Universities of Lausanne and Bologna.

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