"made only of the rotten garble and refuse outcast of all kinds of spices and drugs, hand over head with a little filthy molasses and tarre to worke it up withal," communicated with the College of Physicians, and induced them to prescribe the proper formula and to superintend the manufacture, which was then entrusted to Mr. William Besse, apothecary in the Poultry, Mr. Besse had to take "a corporall oath" before the Lord Mayor, and every year when he made the confection had to show the ingredients and the product to the College of Physicians. His triacle was sold at not above 2s. 8d. per lb. or 2d. per ounce. It appears from the same pamphlet that nothing was alleged against Venice Treacle except its "excessive dearness."
Prosper Alpinus, a Paduan physician, wrote an account of his three years' residence at Cairo ("De Medicina Ægyptorum") in 1591, and has much to say of the manufacture of Theriaca in that city. It was only allowed to be made in public, and the ceremony was performed once a year in the month of May in the Mosque of Morestan by the chief pharmacist of the city in the presence of all the physicians. The operator would give no information to Albinus, a Christian, about the composition; but he got what he wanted from a famous herbalist who collected all the materials for the compound. Alpinus states that at that time Italians, Germans, Poles, Flemings, Englishmen, and Frenchmen came to Cairo to purchase this true Theriaca.
Theriaca (Tyriaca, as he calls it), was among the drugs recommended to Alfred the Great by Helias, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The manuscript is quoted in "Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms" by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne. (See Vol. I, p. 131.)
