alexipharmicaladj.

1608 E. Topsell Hist. Serpents 110 As Palladius hath written, in whose writings, any man may read of plenty of such antydots and alexipharmicall medicines, as may serue to destroy Catterpillers.

1650 R. Baxter Saints Everlasting Rest (1662) iv. iii. 640 As Alexipharmical Medicines preserve the heart.

1670 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 5 1177 Alexipharmical Plants, as Scordium, Rue and the like.

1724 R. Blackmore Treat. Consumptions 215 The same Cordial, or Alexipharmical Remedies, which are most useful in putred and malignant Fevers..are likewise most effectual in removing the Gout from the Stomach.

a1763 N. Hooke Rom. Hist. (1764) III. viii. viii. 258 (note) He [sc. Mithridates] was eminently skilled in the art of physic, and is esteemed the author of that excellent Alexipharmical medicine, which, from his name, is now called Mithridate.

1779 Archaeologia 5 164 Dioscorides and Apuleius, indeed, contend, that the absence of poisonous animals from Crete was owing to the powerful alexipharmical property of the herb dittany, which possessed an extraordinary virtue in that island.

1901 E. Eggleston Transit Civilization ii. 90 Under this head he includes alexipharmical mixtures and remedies whose supposed virtues have no rational basis.