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Snake Stones and Bezoars: Arabic

The first mention of the bezoar stone is by the Arabic and Persian writers. In the Arabic work attributed to Aristotle, and which was certainly written as early as the ninth and possibly in the seventh century, it is even described among the precious stones. The same is true of the oldest Persian work on medicine, namely, that of Abu Mansur Muwaffak, composed about the middle of the tenth century. A valuable monograph on the bezoar was written in 1625 by Caspar Bauhin, a learned professor and physician of Basel; this work contains all that was then known of the various qualities ascribed to this substance by the older authors.

The bezoar does not appear to have been used medicinally in Europe before the twelfth century, when the so-called pestilential fevers became very prevalent. In their distress people turned to the lapis bezoar, which was so highly recommended by the Arabic physicians whose works were, at that time, becoming more widely known through the intercourse between the Spaniards and the Moors. Caspar Bauhin writes: "Even to-day princes and nobles prize it very highly and guard it in their treasures among their most precious gems; so that the physicians are forced, sometimes against their better judgment, to employ it as a remedy. So great are its virtues that many imitations are made." The name bezoar, derived from the Persian padzahr (pad, expelling; zahr, poison), or some of its many variants, was often used to designate any antidote for poison, so that the Arabs would say that such or such a substance was the bezoar for a particular poison. This should be understood to signify that the stone received its name because it was regarded as a specially powerful antidote.

The various authors give many different sources for the bezoar. We have already cited Monardes and repeated his account; other writers asserted that this concretion came from the heads of certain animals, others again said that it was taken from their livers, and still others stated that it was formed in the eye of the stag. Naturally, concretions of a similar form and quality may well have been obtained from any of these sources. Indeed, one of the most potent bezoars was that taken from the monkey. A specimen of this kind is described and figured in the Museum Brittanicum with the following description:

A Monkey's Bezoar, very much resembling one from the goat, of an oblong shape broke in two, with a long straw, or some such like substance in its centre; its colour brown, pink, or deep yellow. I found it set as generally they are for preservation in a little chest, or case, of what is called Lignum Laevisiunum; the pith or medula of which appears to resemble the common elder, and may, for what I know, be as curious as the stone itself. Toll quotes Jacob Bontius to the effect that these monkey bezoars, which were rounded and a little longer than the finger, were considered the best of all. As the chief quality claimed for the bezoar was that it induced a profuse perspiration, we might understand that it could have a beneficial effect in some cases. It was also remarked that the solution of the stone blackened the teeth and those who used it were therefore obliged to take great care that the medicine should not touch their teeth.

We learn that a genuine stone was valued at 50 gold crowns (about $125) in Calcutta; another is said to have brought 130 crowns ($325). De Boot states that a drachm of the powdered stone was worth two ducats ($5) in Lower Germany and four ($10) in Upper Germany; why, he does not say. Garcias ab Horto, a Portuguese physician of Goa, in India, describes a variety of the bezoar called the Lapis Malacensis, used as an antidote for poisons in Malacca. This was found in the liver of the hedgehog, and the substance was held in such esteem that of two found in the fifteenth century, one was sent as a very valuable gift to the Portuguese Viceroy at Goa. Garcias describes this as being of a light purple hue, bitter to the taste and smooth as the skin of a toad. The custom was to steep the stone in water for some time and then to give this water to the patient as a medicinal draught. A specimen was brought to Rome from Portugal by Cardinal Alexandrinus, and Mercato states that he had seen a test of its virtues as an antidote for poisons. In the opinion of De Boot: "As an antidote for any poison which may have been administered, nothing more excellent than the bezoar stone can be had." It was even asserted that if a bezoar set in a ring were frequently placed in the mouth and sucked, this would afford a cure for poison by inducing a profuse perspiration. Besides its exceptional quality as an antidote for poisons, this stone was regarded as a panacea for all chronic and painful diseases, especially if taken each morning for several days, after the use of a cathartic.

Besides this use as a remedy or antidote, the bezoar was credited with the powers of an elixir of life, for some of the Hindus employed it as a preservative of youth and vigor. Twice a year, after dosing themselves with a strong cathartic medicine, they would take ten grains of powdered bezoar daily for fifteen days, and they are said to have derived great benefit from this treatment.

The celebrated practical test of the bezoar's power as an antidote to poison, recorded by the famous French surgeon, Ambroise Pare (1510-1590), was performed in Paris with one which had been brought from Spain to Charles IX of France. Clearly the only perfectly satisfactory means of ascertaining whether the reputed virtues of this curious concretion were really present was to make an experiment therewith upon a living human being. Now it chanced that just at this time there was in the royal prison a cook who had stolen two silver dishes from his master, and who, in accord with the pitiless laws of that period, had been condemned to death for this offence. Here was an excellent opportunity, therefore, to make a trial of the bezoar, but as the adjudged legal penalty could not well be arbitrarily changed to some other form of death, the matter was first laid before the condemned man himself, with the promise that should he not succumb to the poison he would be given his liberty. As at the worst this was taking a chance of life in exchange for certain death, the cook readily consented. The necessary preparations having been made, the poison was administered and immediately thereafter the man was given a dose composed of a part of the bezoar reduced to powder and dissolved in liquid. The effects of the poison were soon manifested by violent retching and purging, and when Pare was called in an hour later, he found the man in great agony, with blood issuing from his nose, ears and mouth, and from the other bodily apertures. He piteously complained that he felt as though consumed by an inward flame, and before another hour had passed he expired, crying out that it would have been much better to have died by hanging. From his report, Pare seems not to have been present when the poison was given and not to have been informed of its character, as he merely states that from the results of his autopsy and from the symptoms he had observed, he concluded that it was corrosive sublimate. Probably, conscientious and truly religious as he was, he was unwilling to take an active part in such an affair. The king ordered that his discredited bezoar should be cast into the fire and destroyed. As an illustration of Ambroise Pare's humility and piety we may cite his remark on the recovery of one of his patients: "I treated him and God cured him." It was Pare who operated upon Admiral Coligny after the unsuccessful attempt on the latter's life made a few days before his assassination on St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1572, at the outset of the dreadful massacre.