at Montpellier on September 23, 1628. It is a most interesting lecture, full of curious old facts chiefly about poisonings, and inspired with an unshakable faith in the importance of the operation in which he was engaged. The exordium is explanatory of the ceremony:
"The regulations and statutes under which we live in this city," says Master Catelan, "require that whenever we prepare either Theriaca, Mithridatium, Confection of Hyacinth, or Confection Alkermes, the compounding shall be done in public, and in the presence of the very illustrious professors of this famous University of Medicine, so that they may have the opportunity of censuring or approving the ingredients, and the public may therefore be assured of the fidelity of these important medicines.
"This is why I have here spread out before you all these drugs which are used in the composition of the great and famous Theriaca.
"But as I am honoured with the attendance of such an august assembly, I ought not, I think, to omit to lay before you some of the singularities associated with the history and composition of this remedy, and I will divide what I have to say on these subjects into three sections, namely—
"(1) The discoverer of this compound; (2) the purpose of the invention; and (3) the reasons why these drugs and no others of the multitude known to us have been chosen for this purpose."
The lecturer then entered upon a history of Mithridates and his wonderful immunity against poisons; of his defeat by Pompey, of the recovery of his formula, of the additions made to it a hundred years later by Andromachus, and of the preservation of directions
