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.”[[414]] 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.[[415]] 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.
1. Hedge-hogstone from Malacca. 2, 3. Spurious stones of this type manufactured in Ceylon. From Kaempfer’s “Amœnitatum exoticarum fasciculi V,” Lemgoviæ, 1712.
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.[[416]]
The celebrated practical test of the bezoar’s power as an antidote to poison, recorded by the famous French surgeon, Ambroise Paré (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 Paré 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, Paré 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 Paré’s humility and piety we may cite his remark on the recovery of one of his patients: “I treated him and God cured him.”[[417]] It was Paré 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.
Alluding to the ill-success attending the experiment performed by Ambroise Paré, in order to test effectively the supposed virtues of the substance as an antidote for poisons, Engelbert Kaempfer remarks that Paré’s bezoar may have been of inferior quality, and, moreover, bezoars could not be successfully used to counteract mineral poisons, but were only useful when vegetable poisons had been taken. This opinion was probably due to the fact that the bezoar itself is largely or in the main a vegetable substance. That the interior layers of a specimen should be inferior in quality to the external layers was not for Kaempfer a proof of its spurious character, but might easily be accounted for by a change of pasturage in the case of the creature in whose body the concretion had formed.
This writer asserts that he considered those bezoars to be genuine which were of a partly resinous and partly mineral composition, so that when pulverized they could be dissolved in nitric acid, the solution having a reddish hue. The Persians not only attributed to bezoars the same virtues as did the Europeans, but also recommended the administration of the bezoar elixir to persons in health, that they might avoid contracting disease and prolong their lives, more especially if the dose were taken at the beginning of the year. In general, however, he found that where Europeans used the bezoar as a remedy, the Persians gave a dose of pearl tincture instead; but as rarities, or perhaps as talismans, bezoars were even more highly prized in Persia than in Europe, for there was hardly a Persian of note who did not preserve one of these concretions among his treasures. The price depended upon perfection of form and color, as well as upon size, one weighing a mishkel (about 75 grains Troy) was commonly valued at one toman, the equivalent of 15 ounces of silver (about $20), according to Kaempfer’s computation, but the price rose rapidly with the size of the bezoar in a proportion similar to that observable in the case of pearls. As Persian bezoars were so costly in Persia, and the home demand for them so great, those sold by this name in Europe must have had another origin.[[418]]
Of several experiments made with criminals to whom poison was administered and then a dose of bezoar to test its virtues as an antidote, one of the most interesting has to do with a criminal incarcerated in the prison at Prague, in the reign of Emperor Rudolph II. To this man a drachm of the deadly poison aconitum napellus was administered. Five hours were allowed to elapse before the bezoar was given, so that the poison should have full time to be absorbed by the system. During this time the effects were fully manifested, oppression at the chest, pain in the gastric region, dimness of vision and dizziness. When the five hours had expired five grains of bezoar were given to the man in a little wine. After taking the dose he felt some relief and vomited, but the bad symptoms soon returned and even became aggravated, as though a supreme conflict for the mastery between poison and antidote were in progress. There was delirium, extreme tension of the abdomen, repeated vomiting, and an irregular, feverish pulse; finally an acute inflammation of the eyes supervened, causing such intense pain that the man declared he would rather die than endure it longer. However, at the end of eight hours’ time from the administration of the poison—three hours after the dose of bezoar had been given—all the morbid conditions passed off, the patient was able to eat food with relish and he slept quietly. In the morning he was perfectly well, and never realized any subsequent bad effects. The emperor released him from prison and even bestowed a handsome reward upon him.[[419]]
A strange experiment to determine the character and quality of bezoars is related by Kaempfer on the authority of Jager. The latter asserted that while in Golconda he had the opportunity of examining recently captured gazelles for the presence of bezoars, and that by compressing their abdomens he could distinctly feel two such concretions in the case of one of the animals and five or six in the case of the other. They were kept some days for further observation, but as they absolutely refused all food, it was decided to kill them rather than have them starve to death. This was done, but when the bodies were opened no trace of any bezoar could be found, and Jager conjectures that the substance of these concretions had been absorbed into the system of the animal for lack of any other nourishment.[[420]]