🚀 go-pugleaf

mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) wrote:
> I've heard about a thing called a bezoar stone, which apparently comes from
> the stomach of some sort of goat.  It's reputed to absorb poison.
  
> Anybody ever see one of these things?  Could it be polished like a rock,
> or is it more like a piece of dried manure?  Is it really effective for
> removing some kinds of poisons?  Where do they come form, and how much
> do they cost?

The following is paraphrased from Frank Dawson Adams: "The Birth and
Development of the Geological Sciences" (Dover reprint, 1954, of a 1938
original), one of the finest collections of nutty notions ever assembled
between covers.

The bezoar was first mentioned by the mediaeval Arab physicians.  It seems
to be a goat's hairball.  It got such a reputation as a poison antidote
that the Persian variety (supposed to be the best - llama hairballs from
"the island of Peru" were also used) was sold for ten times its weight in
gold.  Other "stones" supposedly from inside animals (usually the head)
were also regarded as having poisonproofing properties; these originally
had specific names depending on whether they came from a stag, cat, dragon,
or whatever, but eventually all got labelled as "bezoar".  Frederich Slare,
fellow of the Royal Society, investigated them experimentally in 1715 and
concluded that people who buy them are "exchanging good silver for clay and
dirt".  Adams doesn't say what his experiments were but I imagine they
involved doing nasty things to puppies without anaesthetic.

Here is one bezoar story, from Bauhin's "De Lapides Bezaaris" (Basle, 1625):
"[after a stag has eaten a poisonous snake] driven mad by thirst, it darts
forward at full speed to find some pool or river in which to plunge itself,
that by the cooling water the mighty heat which has seized upon after
devouring these noxious animals may be assuaged.  It remains standing in
the water, drinking nothing, until that burning heat has been tempered and
passed away.  Standing immersed in these waters, taught as it is by nature,
like Tantalus thirsty in the midst of the billows, it does not drink, for if
it should taste the least drop of water, it would fall dead upon the spot.

"In the meantime tears slowly ooze forth from its eyes, which little by
little grow thicker in the corners of its eyes, are congealed there into
the size of a chestnut, or of an acorn.  When it feels itself relieved of
the poison, stepping out of the water, it turns aside into its own lairs,
and to remove the stones which are an obstacle to vision it rubs its head
against the trees, or as others say, in the act of stepping out of the
river, the stones fall from its eyes to the ground.  When they are found
the merchants of Sicily and the East sell them at a high price as an
efficaceous remedy against any poison.  For this is the Belhazard, that is
to say "The Antidote Stone", held in such high esteem among those who
possess it, that they have not the slightest fear of any poison whatsoever."

On the other hand, "heliotrope" might be a better bet.  That stone not only
protects you against poison, but also, according to the mediaeval
lapidaries, makes you invisible and guards your soul from error.  I just
happen to have some handy in my desk drawer, right beside the title deeds
for the Forth Bridge... prices on application...

-- 
Jack Campin  *  Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
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