 In the very early 18th century, Jakob Le Mort (1650–1718), a professor of chemistry at Leiden University, prepared an elixir for asthma and called it "paregoric".The word "paregoric" comes from the Greek word "paregoricon" which was originally applied to oratory – to speak, but, more accurately, talk over, soothe, and finally came to have the same meaning as "anodyne".Le Mort's elixir, consisted of "honey, licorice, flowers of Benjamin, and opium, camphor, oil of aniseed, salt of tartar and spirit of wine," became official as "Elixir Asthmaticum" in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1721.