antidotary

antidotary

English

Etymology

antidote +‎ -ary

Adjective

antidotary (not comparable)

1. (pharmacology) Relating to or being an antidote, antidotal.
   • 1579, John Louth, Reminiscences, in Narratives of the Days of the Reformation edited by John Gough Nichols, Camden Society, 1859, p. 22,

     A lerned man may hereby gathere that the doctore havyng an evil conscience […] poysoned hymself […] but, as it semeth by conjecture, receavyng suche chearefull message by poste from the commissyoners, wold have recovered hym selfe by medicyne, to late taken; for nuttes, rew, and fygges, ys a good antidotary preservative agaynst poysone, being taken in tyme.

   • 1838, Anthony Carlisle, Practical Observations on the Preservation of Health, and the Prevention of Diseases, London: John Churchill, Introductory Exposition, pp. xiv-xv,

     It is a gross mistake to suppose that the apothecary’s shop contains a remedy for every disease, or that medical skill consists in prescribing an antidotary drug […]

   • 1913, Girindranāth Mukhopādhyāya, The Surgical Instruments of the Hindus, Calcutta University, Volume I, p. 198,

     In ancient times, in India, the kings used to decorate themselves with antidotary gems, as a safeguard against poisons. Even now the snake charmers apply a black stone on their bodies where they are wounded by the venomous reptile.

Noun

antidotary (plural antidotaries)

1. (obsolete) An antidote.
   • 1584, Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, edited by Brinsley Nicholson, London: Elliot Stock, 1886, Chapter 7, p. 245,

     […] he saith that some Jasper stones are found having in them the livelie image of a naturall man, with a sheeld at his necke and a speare in his hand, and under his feete a serpent: which stones so marked and signed, he preferreth before all the rest, bicause they are antidotaries or remedies notablie resisting poison.

2. (historical) A book of antidotes or pharmacological preparations.
   • 1685, Thomas Willis, The London Practice of Physick, London: Thomas Basset et al., Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 2, p. 148,

     In the Antidotaries of the Ancients, we find a great many Physical Compositions which seem to be wholly design’d for the Liver […]

   • 1851, Review of Pharmacy of the Greeks and Romans by M. Cap, translated by W.H. Cobb, Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Volume 7, Number 5, May 1851, p. 377,

     Galen called all medicines administered internally, antidotes; thence, the word antidotary was for a long time employed synonymously with dispensary, or pharmacopœia.

   • 1920, D’Arcy Power, “The Education of a Surgeon under Thomas Vicary,” lecture delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 11 November, 1920, British Journal of Surgery, Volume 8, Number 31, pp. 256-257,

     Readiness of resource, mother-wit, and a fair average of manipulative skill were characteristics of the Tudor surgeon, and he trepanned the head, opened the chest, cut for stone, and amputated with remarkable success. He also had some knowledge of herbs and simples, and there had been handed down to him an antidotary or collection of prescriptions which had proved useful to his predecessors.

   • 2010, Esther Cohen, The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture, University of Chicago Press, Part I, Chapter 3, p. 95,

     The practice of collecting recipes in antidotaries, probably composed in monasteries, goes back to the High Middle Ages.

Translations

antidote — see antidote

a book of antidotes

Portuguese: antidotário m

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for antidotary in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)