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Talk:Mithridate

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Did it work?

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This article leaves out a very important question - did it actually work? Ariel. 02:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The dead didn't complain. The living kept renewing their prescriptions. (shrug) Modern medicine generally regards the specific mithridatum as mythical. If you read The Poison King, the point is made that Mithridatus himself probably worked a specific dosing of poison into a daily habituation to make himself immune to the poisons regularly used at his own court. Therefore, it was specific and not universal, but he was such a hardy survivor that later tellers of his legend assumed that he had found this magical mixture that would neutralize (instead of habituate) any poison. Hithladaeus (talk) 15:08, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]