or Venice treacle, once believed to be a sovereign remedy against poison. From Orvieto, a city of Italy, where it is said to have been first used.
“With these drugs will I, this very day, compound the true orvietan.”—Sir Walter Scott: Kenilworth, chap. xiii.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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