Abstract
Bezoars were introduced into Western medicine by Arabian doctors during the twelfth century. They were used as antidotes to arsenic, the poison used most commonly in European courts. The use of bezoars was widespread during the sixteenth century, and their value was ten times more than their weight in gold. These were rare and expensive items and many kings owned one or more specimens, some of which were mounted as pieces of jewelry. Sixteenth and seventeenth century physicians wrote extensively about them, describing their properties and use. ‘Oriental bezoars’ (mostly from Asian porcupines) were introduced at this time.
Difficulty in obtaining bezoars led to the production of numerous dangerous counterfeits containing highly toxic substances including cinnabar, quicksilver and antimony. Possibly for these reasons, their use declined at the end of the seventeenth century and from 1800 onwards, they were no longer used. In strict mineralogical terms, bezoars are not actually stones. However, the Flemish mineralogist and physician, Anselm Boetius de Boodt (1550–1632) included them in his work Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia (History of Gems and Stones, 1609) and their study is an important chapter in the history of toxicology.
Bezoars, present and past
In humans, bezoars are agglomerates of undigested fibre or hair that form in the stomach and other parts of the gastro-intestinal tract. They are called phytobezoars, composed of vegetable fibres and trichobezoars, formed from the ingestion of hair in patients with behavioural problems. Chewing gum bezoars are also frequent. Veterinary medicine also has to deal with numerous bezoars produced in animal stomachs and intestines; most mammals, reptiles and even fishes can produce them. Bezoars are formed as a reaction to indigestible material that the organism cannot expel after swallowing. A concretion is formed around the nucleus of fibres or hair. In humans, it usually has to be removed by endoscopy (Berkow 1992, pp. 780–781).
Arabian physicians used bezoars against poisons and erected an aura of magical healing and protection around them. Based upon the meaning of the ancient Persian word, padzahr (pad, expelling; zahr, poison), bezoars were regarded as very effective antidotes. By the end of the twelfth century medicinal bezoar stones were mainly concretions obtained from the double stomachs of Asian ruminants and their use was already widespread throughout Europe (Kunz 1915, p. 203). The calcium and phosphates they contain appear to make them antidotes to arsenic, the most commonly used poison in European courts (Schott 1995, p. 91). A study of the composition of animal stones from 1816 onwards has shown the presence of calcium phosphates (brushite, struvite) in goat and in deer stones (Van Tassel 1970, p. 31). These minerals act as chelating agents and neutralize the effects of the poison.
This paper discusses the traditional use of bezoar stones as antidotes in ancient alexipharmic practice (antidotes). Experiments to test the efficacy of bezoars have been carried out since the sixteenth century. There are a few recent studies on their pharmacological composition and therapeutic properties.
The bezoars and other ancient alexipharmics
The Crusaders not only introduced the medical works of Arabic authors into Europe, but also played an important role in the transport and exchange of exotic medicines, including bezoars and unicorn horns (Shepard 1930). Like the bezoar, the unicorn was believed to protect against poison, and was bound deeply to magic and religious healing traditions (Halleux & Schamp 1985). The Líthica Orphéôs, an anonymous ancient Greek magic-religious poem, incited people to look at the wonderful stag’s horn and to approach the Immortals because their minds smile when they behold such an artistic work of Nature. The horn described in this work is a stone with the shape of the volutes of a goat’s horn, a very popular medicine in the materia medica of antiquity that resembles ammonites (Opiano 1990).
Palaeontological material has been used for therapeutic purposes since the Neolithic in Europe (Bassett 1982) and in classical times (Duffin 2008), and it is a part of traditional medicine. In Antiquity ammonites were commonly related to enrolled snakes. They were used as amulets and protectors and as antidotes against snake bite, immersed in water that animals would drink when they were bitten by poisonous animals. They were also believed to be helpful in the treatment of blindness, impotence and sterility (Narváez & Barris 2010).
Bezoars joined mithridatum and theriac in the ranks of medicines that Galen (129–c. 210 AD) called antidotis (Galen De Antidotis, Book I, Chapter I in Kollesh & Nickel 1979, p. 164). They were recommended in feeding problems, and to fight the effects of toxic agents and the bites of venomous animals. Galen explained how to produce a good theriac (Galen De Antidotis Book I, Chapter II in Kühn 1821 XIV, pp. 5–13).
Mithridates VI, King of Ponto (143–63 BC) succeeded in finding a way of becoming resistant to poisons by taking small daily doses of different ones. King Mithridates had discovered the pharmacological paradox that poisons can be beneficial as well as lethal (Mayor 2010, p. 2).
According to Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD), Mithridates was the first to discover the various antidotes (Pliny Natural History Book XXV, Chapter III in Jones, 1956, p. 139). Ironically, King Mithridates had to be killed by the sword when his kingdom was conquered by the Romans after 42 years of war, because poisons had little effect on him. Appian tells us about his death: ‘upon Mithridates, although he walked about rapidly to hasten its action, it had no effect, because he had accustomed himself to other drugs by continually trying them as a means of protection against poisoners. And he asked Bituitus, an officer from Gaul to stab him with his sword’ (Appian Book XII in Henderson 1912, p. 455).
Mithridates’ experiments to test the efficacy of his antidotes were carried out on criminals sentenced to death (Mayor 2010, p. 220). Galen transcribed the recipe that Andromachus, the Cretan, the Emperor Nero’s physician, wrote down as a poem with the ingredients of mithridatum. He added viper’s meat and poppy seeds, and called it theriacus, a Latin word that means ‘good against poisons’ (Galen De Antidotis, Book I, Chapter I, VI in Kühn 1822, XIV, p. 32).
Bezoar stones had similar properties to these medicines but supposedly were more effective antidotes. They were used in a similar way to unicorn horn, being scraped, reduced to powder and then suspended in liquids, usually wine, where their healing agents were diluted. Mithridatum and theriac, used to prevent and treat all kinds of diseases and evil conditions, were criticized by Pliny the Elder because of the number of ingredients they contained (Pliny Book XXIX, Chapter VIII in Jones 1963, p. 199); mithridatum was made using 54 compounds and the number in theriac was countless. Pliny argued that Nature provided each individual compound as a fully effective therapy in its own right. Since, however, there were no better therapeutic alternatives, these medicines were used until the end of the eighteenth century. The tolerance to a poison acquired by taking gradually larger doses is known in modern medicine as mithridatism.
The medicinal use of bezoars in Europe
Various Arabian authors introduced new toxicological agents into the materia medica. The spice trade was established in Roman times and had already stimulated a considerable exchange of medical knowledge between Europe and India. By the seventh century the Arabs were trading along the West Coast of India. Spice cargoes always contained numerous medicinal products. By the ninth century Indian physicians attended Arabic courts, and in the tenth and eleventh centuries Arabic medical writings already incorporated a wide knowledge of Indian medicine, containing numerous products of animal origin. Bezoars do not appear to have been used in Europe before the twelfth century, when pestilential fevers became prevalent, causing such distress that physicians started to employ this highly recommended therapy, imported from the Arabic medical tradition (Kunz 1915, p. 203). Bezoars were introduced into Europe by the contact established between the Spaniards and the Moors.
Trade and use by the Portuguese
In early modern times, Portuguese physicians introduced the bezoar stones into European medical writings. By 1510 the Portuguese were established in Goa and were the first to trade in bezoars. The Dutch followed in 1595, making the East Indies the centre of their Empire, and the English East India Company set up trading posts from 1608, gradually taking a lead in this market (Patterson 2001).
Garcia de Orta (1490–1568), a Jewish Portuguese doctor who lived in Portuguese Indian territories, wrote the first European work on Eastern diseases and on Indian drugs (Fig. 1). His work, Coloquios dos simples, e drogas he cousas medicinais da India, printed in Goa (Orta 1563) was written in Portuguese and collected valuable information on the new materials used in Eastern medicine; it was translated into Latin by the botanist Charles de L’Ecluse (latinised to Clusius) in 1567, enlarged and reprinted several times (1574, 1579, 1593, 1601, 1605, 1611). In 1602 it was translated into French. The Portuguese physician Cristovão da Costa, also known as Cristobal Acosta (1515–1594), born in Ceuta, wrote an important book in Spanish, Tractato de las drogas y medicinas de las Índias orientales based on Garcia de Orta’s work (Costa 1578).
Title page: Coloquios dos Simples, e drogas he cousas medicinais da India, 1953, by Garcia de Orta. Private collection.
A poem by Luís de Camões (c. 1524–c. 1580) dedicated to Francisco Coutinho (1561–1564), the eighth Indian Viceroy, includes praise to Garcia de Orta. Camões and Orta had become acquainted in India (Orta 1891) and were close friends. Garcia de Orta represented the impact of the discovery of India in Portuguese and European culture and Luís de Camões paid tribute to his friend:
Favor the ancient
Science which Achilles held in esteem;
Look, because you must see
What was created in our time
The fruit of a Garden where
New plants bloom, unknown to scholars.
Look, how in your lifetime
A remarkable Garden produces many herbs
In the Lusitanian fields,
Herbs which those wise sorcerers
Medea and Circe never found,
Because the laws of Magic outwitted them.
Garcia de Orta’s work was written in the form of a discussion with Ruano, his imaginary colleague in India, in a total of 58 dialogues (Carvalho www.vidaslusofonas). Bezoar stones were included among the new therapeutic agents he described. He dedicated a chapter, Colloquy 45 (Bezoar Stone), to ‘this wonderful precious stone used by the Arabian physicians’ produced in the stomach of male Persian goats. The bezoar was formed around an undigested straw, producing a laminated structure compared with an onion. De Orta was already aware of the dangers of counterfeits (Orta 1913, p. 363). Since bezoars are reactions to any kind of indigestible material, it was difficult even for experts to distinguish real bezoars from forgeries, since straws were used to fabricate fake bezoars. The goat bezoars were described as being the colour of aubergine; the larger stones were supposedly of better quality and so they were more expensive. The high price of bezoars is also referred by Garcia the Orta in the same chapter; one of these stones had been sold for 32 000 Reis (Orta 1563, p. 170).
Oriental bezoars
Indian bezoars were used medicinally for malignant fevers. It was believed they could stop bleeding and avert and cure melancholic diseases. Wealthy princes used to take them as preventatives, dissolved in beverages twice a year (March and September), each time following a strong purge. By taking this medicine, they managed to be healthier and stronger, both for war and for love, and avoided melancholic and skin diseases. Bezoars were also prescribed in all cases of poisonous bites. For the Hindus bezoar stones were elixirs of life and vigour (Kunz 1915, p. 205).
Garcia de Orta was conversant with the most outstanding Arabian authors, but while in India he became acquainted with the hakuma, the Arabian physicians, and with the vydias, the Hindu physicians, whom he had never met before. He incorporated knowledge of Hindu medicine into his medical practice and started to use local Indian bezoars. In Colloquy 58 he described the porcupine bezoar, highly valued by the Portuguese Viceroy, as a small, clear, vermillion stone with a bitter taste and which felt like French soap. He ascribed its origin to porcupine bile. Despite its bitterness, it proved to be good for stomach ache. The stones were supposed to come from the porcupine gall bladder and Garcia de Orta believed they were already used in ancient Rome since bezoars were valued as precious stones (Orta 1563, pp. 226–227).
In early modern times Eastern porcupine bezoars joined the male goat bezoars used by Arabian physicians. These bezoars were traded mostly by the Portuguese who brought them from Malaysia and Indonesia. They were obtained from three different porcupine species: the Malayan porcupine (Hystrix brachyura), the long-tailed porcupine (Trichis fasciatum) and the thick-spined porcupine (Thecurus crassispinis). Porcupine stones were not equally valuable; whitish and pale blue-green varieties were esteemed as being of higher quality. Their characteristic extremely bitter taste was due to Leuconotis anceps, a Borneo liana, one of the most important porcupine food sources, which produces a latex-like juice (Borschberg 2006, p. 67).
Recently Peter Borschberg conducted an inquiry into the healing characteristics of these stones in the Penan and Iban tribes in Sarawak in the Malayan Peninsula, where they are still used and traded today. He concluded that the healing power of the bezoar is attributable to the porcupine diet. These rodents are able to eat the most bitter roots and tubers, some of which are toxic to humans and are used by the tribal people to stun fish in the rivers. For them the stones are a kind of equivalent to our modern antioxidant drugs. The demand for bezoars continues. Fake bezoars made from bitter substances with some hair included are still sold in Asiatic markets (Borschberg 2006, pp. 65–66, 74).
Modern alexipharmics
Once imported into Europe, bezoar stones were often stored, displayed and utilized in specially designed items of tableware. Multiple amuletic substances were often combined together in the same piece. One Goan vessel (Fig. 2) dating from the second half of the sixteenth century, is made from the woody endocarp of a coconut (Cocus nucifera L.) with a rhinoceros horn handle, containing an oriental bezoar. Each of these materials was considered to be antitoxic and was used in amulets. This object is now considered to be as aspersorium, a vessel that holds holy water in Roman Catholic Churches (Keating & Markey 2011). This vessel exhibits a silver gilt mount bearing an inscription of a Latin rendering of Psalm 42:2:
SITIVIT ANIMA MEA AD DEV(M) FONTE(M) VIVV(M) QVANDO VENIAM ET AP(P)AREBO ANTE FACIEM DEI
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? (Bible, King James Version, 1611).
Coconut vessel from Ceylon and Iberic Peninsula or Goa from the second half of the sixteenth century, made from rhinoceros horn, containing an oriental bezoar, inscribed silver gilt mount and an inscription. Size: height, 23.5 cm; depth, 14.8 cm; inventory no. KK. 913. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
The inscription bears a stamp/sign I. T. B. (Fig. 2).
Coconut was supposed to be a potent alexipharmic and was thought to come from the sea. Luís de Camões expresses this belief in the Lusíadas (Canto X, vv.136):
See in Ceylon that Peak so stark, so gaunt,
shooting high o’ver the clouds or mocking sight:
The native peoples hold it sacrosanct
for the famed Stone where print of foot is pight:
O’ver lone Maldivia’s islets grows the plant,
beneath profoundest seas, of sov’ereign might;
whose pome of eve’ry Theriack is confest
by cunning leech of antidotes the best.
This translation (Camões 1880) is very close to the original Portuguese poem. Archaisms are used in the poem, with ‘pight’ and ‘pome’ meaning ‘pitched’ and ‘fruit’ respectively.
The coconuts from the Maldive Islands referred to by Camões were also known as sea coconuts. They were actually the fruits of Lodoicea sechellarum Labill, a palm tree from the Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean (Riedel 1981). Garcia de Orta dedicated an entire chapter of his book, Colloquy 16, ‘Do Coquo’ (the coconut), to this exotic and tasty fruit. However, he believed that other medicines, like the bezoar stones, theriac, terra sigillata, emeralds and medicines made from oriental snakes and plants, were more effective as antivenins and he ascribed the therapeutic effect of the coconut to a fancy of the natives (Orta 1563, p. 68).
Amatus Lusitanus and the origin of bezoars and snake-stones
João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco (1511–1568), a young compatriot of Garcia de Orta who later changed his name to Amatus Lusitanus (Fig. 3) (Coelho 1998), reported the use of an Indian goat bezoar in the treatment of a poisoning by corrosive sublimate. Theriac and emetics had also been used in this successful treatment. He described the bezoar as a small, laminated, grey to dark blue stone in the form and shape of an acorn, extracted from the stomach or entrails and widely approved as an effective and divine antidote to all kinds of poisons. He reported the case of a man who managed to survive a very dangerous poison after taking that antidote in barley and pumpkin water, following the prescription from Avenzoar (1091–1161), an Arab doctor. Other applications of the bezoar stones included preparations against malignant fevers and the induction of vomiting and sweating.
Amatus Lusitanus (1500–1568), Portuguese doctor (Friedenwald collection).
Avenzoar’s own experience (he claimed to have been rescued from ineluctable death after having drunk the bezoar), described in his book Theisir, was also reported by Amatus. The cure of jaundice was also attributed to the same medicine. Lusitanus indulged in the study of all kinds of therapeutic agents (Lusitanus 2010, p. 137). He also wrote a work of comments on the Greek textbook De Materia Medica by Dioscorides: ‘Index Dioscoridis’ (Lusitanus 1553). These works are currently being translated into Portuguese, as part of the Project ‘Dioscórides e o Humanismo Português: os Comentários de Amato Lusitano’ by a team of researchers led by Professor António Andrade from the University of Aveiro.
Some authors believed that bezoars came from the head of certain animals while others believed they originated in the liver. Some believed they came from the eye of a stag. The origin of bezoars was associated with snake-stone legends, an ancient belief present in many cultures. Pliny the Elder mentioned a kind of egg, the size of an apple, that was very famous in Gaul. It was used by the Druids, who believed it was produced by the saliva of snakes and then tossed into the air. Christopher Duffin has shown that this ‘snakestone’ is actually a fossil echinoid (Duffin 2008, p. 19).
Bezoars were also associated with deer tears and thought to be effective against all kinds of poisons. Amatus Lusitanus ascribed the bezoar’s origin to the tears shed by deer when they battled with and killed snakes. Eating the snakes, the deer sank into muddy waters where its tears coagulated to form a precious bezoar stone (Pliny Book XXIX, Chapter XI in Jones, W.H. 1956, p. 217). From the time of Pliny it was believed that animals produced bezoars in self-defence against poisonous plants and snake bites (Van Tassel 1970, p. 32).
Bezoars from the New World
Bezoars from the New World were esteemed less highly. They were produced by several animals including peacocks, wild boars and a variety of rodents, including beavers. Nicolás Monardes (c. 1512–1588), a Spanish physician, wrote on tropical diseases and introduced West Indian medicines into the European materia medica (Weckmann 1992). He was very enthusiastic about bezoars both as healing agents and as powerful antidotes. His text on bezoars is the subject of the second book of his most important work (Monardes 1565).
Bezoars mounted as pieces of art
The demand for bezoars in both formal and popular medicine increased steadily, leading to the appearance of counterfeits. It was difficult even for experts to distinguish a true one from an imitation. Bezoar stones commanded unbelievably high prices. One of Lusitanus’s wealthy patients, Beatriz de Luna (1510–1569) or Grácia Nasi Benveniste (Jewish name), the wife of Francisco Mendes Benveniste, a rich Jewish banker, purchased a bezoar for 130 golden ducats when she came to Venice from Antwerp. The bezoar bought by the illustris Domina Beatrix a Luna, mulier opulentissima belonged to a former Portuguese Indian Viceroy (Lusitanus 1553, p. 188).
The great demand for bezoars made them rarer and more expensive. Popular among the nobility and the wealthy, they were often kept in special containers, usually richly worked in gold, silver and precious stones. Bezoars were esteemed as precious talismans in the belief that they brought good fortune and assistance in all kinds of lethal poisoning. A letter from Cristoff Hyeble to the wealthy banker Philip Edouard Fugger (1546–1615) illustrates this opinion. He recommended that everyone should buy one of these stones to afford protection against serious poisoning and disease, no matter the effort or the cost involved (Hyeble 1598, p. 40). The stones were so valuable that one sixteenth-century Spanish Oriental bezoar bears an inscription of its weight:
PEDRA . BESOHAR . FINISSIMA . PESA . OCHO . ONCAS
(The best bezoar stone, it weights eight pounds) (Fig. 4)
Spanish Oriental bezoar stone with a golden ring and an inscription, sixteenth century. Size: length, 9 cm; width, 4.9 cm; inventory no. KK. 958. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
Bezoars found in monkeys and porcupines in SE Asia were the most expensive. Referred to as lapis bezoar orientalis, they were presented as special gifts to very special people. One pietra de porcospino was offered by Ferdinand I de Medici to Eleanora de Medici, Duchess of Mantua, in 1608. Queen Elizabeth I (1535–1603) had a bezoar inlayed in her crown, used as a talisman or charm (Borschberg 2006, pp. 61, 67).
The monkey bezoar, closely resembling that of the goat, was deemed to be the most valuable of all. Rounded and little longer than a finger, it was singled out for special praise by Jacob Bontius (1592–1631) (Bontius 1642), the Dutch botanist, physician and pharmacist who lived in India and was the first to describe the neuropathy caused by thiamine deficiency (beriberi).
Some of the bezoar containers are rare and valuable works of art and have been studied by Duffin 2013a. Sometimes, the owner’s name was carved on the bezoar container. A golden filigree pendant from the fourth quarter of the sixteenth century containing a Goa bezoar bears the arms of the Duke of Alba (1508–1582; Fig. 5).
Gold filigree pendant with the arms of the Duke of Alba (1508–1582) shaped as a small flask, containing a Goa bezoar, fourth quarter of the sixteenth century. Size: length, 16.2; inventory no. KK. 998. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
One specimen embedded in golden filigree with a long golden stem forms part of the Art cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna (Fig. 6). Another specimen from the Museu da Farmácia de Lisboa was kept in an ovoid decorated container (Fig. 7).
Bezoar, gold filigree work, Goa, fourth quarter of the seventeenth century. Size: height, 11.6; diameter 7.6 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna inventory no. KK.1001. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
Bezoar stone with its oval container decorated, seventeenth century, Germany. Size: depth, 8.00 cm; inventory no. 13583. Reproduced with permission of the Museu de Farmácia de Lisboa.
A silver goblet of an intact Goa stone, fabricated by the Portuguese Jesuits of the Monastery of São Paulo Goa, dating between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, can be seen at the Museu da Farmácia de Lisboa (Fig. 8).
Bezoar stone mounted on a gold filigree stand, decorated with coral, eighteenth century. Size: height 25.5. Provenance unknown. Távora Sequeira Pinto collection, Oporto. Reproduced with permission of the collection's owner.
Anselm Boetius de Boodt
Although not strictly stones, the Flemish mineralogist Anselm Boetius de Boodt (1550–1632), Physician to the Emperor Rudolf II, included them in his work Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, published in 1609 (Fig. 9). Minerals, especially precious stones, have been highly appreciated for their supposed therapeutic qualities since classical times (Duffin 2013b).
Title page: Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia (History of Gems and Stones, 1609) by Anselmus Boetius de Boodt (sourced from Google books).
De Boodt described the therapeutic uses of bezoars as an effective diaphoretic, an antidote to all kinds of poisons and the bites of venomous animals, and very useful in the treatment of wounds, infections and pestilential fevers. It was supposedly helpful in the treatment of heart diseases, improved the condition of those suffering from depressive disorders and cured skin diseases, including Arabic leprosy, the elephantiasis of the Greeks, scabies, itching and erysipelas. Bezoars were also deemed helpful in the treatment of quartan fevers and epilepsy (De Boodt 1647).
Bezoars and unicorn horns
During the sixteenth century, bezoars and unicorn horns were often associated in therapeutic recipes and in items of jewelry. The horn of a goat and a bezoar from Peru were combined in the same miraculous recipe for treating poisoning and contagious conditions, as well as ascariasis, pestilential fevers, petechiae, malignant pimples and herpes (De Boodt 1647, p. 36). A drinking vessel from about 1600 is composed of an Indian rhino horn (Rhinoceros unicornis?) with a bezoar in the interior, supported by a silver and enameled stem (Fig. 10). Another valuable piece is a bowl from about 1600, made from Javanese ‘unicorn’ (Rhinoceros sondaicus) containing a bezoar with a golden lid stem (Fig. 11).
Drinking cup with China (Ming Dynasty) and Iberian golden silver work, c. 1600, horn of the Indian Rhinoceros unicornis (?) with bezoar inside. Size: height, 12.8 cm; width, 13.8 cm; depth, 9.8 cm; inventory no. KK. 3744. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
Bowl carved from Javanese ‘unicorn’ (Rhinoceros sondaicus) and containing a bezoar, with a golden lid and stem; Spanish (Iberian), c. 1600. Size: height, 15.2 cm; width, 18 cm; depth, 12 cm. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
Rudolf II’s bezoars
Bezoars were prized possessions in Rudolf II’s cabinet of art and curiosities. One of these pieces can be seen in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna. Dating from about 1600, it is a reddish bezoar turned into an artistic enamel goblet, signed by Jan Vermeyden (before 1559–1606), made while the Belgian goldsmith was working in Prague. Rudolf II was fond of objects worked out of mineral and animal material, and in later life he was afraid of being poisoned (Bauer 1988, p. 209; Fig. 12).
Bezoar goblet signed by Jan Vermeyen (Brussels before 1559–1606), Prague c. 1600. Size: height, 14.5 cm; inventory no. KK. 3259. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
A golden bowl with a bezoar attached by means of a golden chain, dating from the seventeenth century, also belonged to him. It was probably used to test for the presence of poison in beverages (Fig. 13). Another piece held in this collection is a bezoar of Spanish origin dating from the third quarter of the sixteenth century. A small greenish stone is placed on a gold ring set with emeralds and resting on three ornamental lions. Four bands set with emeralds and dragon-like volutes support the bezoar, topped by a crown set with emeralds (Fig. 14).
Golden bowl with Bezoar stone attached, seventeenth century. Size: diameter, 14; width 17; height 6.9 cm; inventory no. KK. 1140. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
Spanish bezoar with an artistic work of gold emeralds and rubies from Castilia or Aragon, middle or third quarter of sixteenth century. Size: height, 25.5; width 16; depth 13.3 cm; inventory no. KK. 981. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
Bezoars were also finely worked to be used as amulets in pendants. They were used for protection and personal adornment (Fig. 15), following an ancient use.
Bezoar pendant, gold filigree work, Goa, seventeenth century. Size: height, 9 cm; inventory no. KK. 996. Reproduced with permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.
In Roman times, people used to carry amulets around the neck. There were small pendant containers, bullae that were used to house precious incantations. José Leite de Vasconcellos (1858–1941) described two of these amulets that children wore around their neck, around their wrists or hanging on their chest from the ninth day after birth until puberty when they received the toga viril. The golden bulla would have belonged to a wealthy child (Vasconcellos 1913, p. 526; Fig. 16). Bronze bullae were used by poor children (Fig. 17; Ribeiro 2002, p. 487, Pl. 167).
Bronze bulla Bronze, Torre de Ares, Algarve (Portugal), Roman period, first/fourth century AD. Size: height, 4.2; width 2.65 cm; inventory no. 98328889. Reproduced with permission of the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia de Lisboa.
Golden bulla, Pombalinho (Grândola, Setúbal, Portugal). Size: length, 1.2; width 8 cm; first/second century AD; inventory no. Au 91. Reproduced with the permission of the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia de Lisboa.
Mistrust of bezoars and Caspar Bauhin’s monography
Relatively few sixteenth-century doctors were sceptical of the therapeutic value of bezoar stones. Ambroise Paré (1510–1590) condemned the use of ‘the mumia’ and distrusted the medicinal properties of bezoars. In 1575 a cook at his Court, who had been caught stealing silver cutlery, agreed to be poisoned and then treated with the bezoar stone. He died in terrible agony six hours after taking the poison. Paré’s experiment showed that the bezoar stone was not effective in every case of poisoning, contrary to popular belief at the time (Stephen 2010, pp. 186–187).
Caspar Bauhin (1511–1624), a learned professor and physician of Basel, wrote an important monograph on bezoar stones (Fig. 18), but he indicated that physicians were forced to use bezoars, because ‘princes and magnates’ valued them so highly:
Hinc factum, ut etiamnum hodie lapis hic apud principes et magnates tanti nominis sit, ut eum non solum inter sua ceimelia reponant, verum etiam in gemmarum numero, et quidem earum quae auro æquiparantur, et etiam illo pretiosiores existimantur, habeant: ita ut hunc medici, sed nonnullietiam inviti, in illorum gratiam, in usum revocare cogantur. (Bauhin 1625, Præf. 3)
Frontispiece: De lapidis Bezaari (On Bezoar Stones, 1625) by Caspar Bauhin (sourced by Google books).
(As a result this stone [bezoar] has earned until now such fame among princes and magnates, they not only have it among their treasures but they also consider it to rank in the category of precious stones, really equivalent to gold and even more valuable than it, in such a way that physicians, but some certainly upset, feel compelled to prescribe [the bezoar] it to obtain [princes’ and magnates’] favour.)
Bauhin admonished against dangerous forgeries that often contained highly toxic substances including cinnabar, quicksilver and even antimony (Bauhin 1625, p. 142).
He named the porcupine bezoar lapis malaccensis, reviewed Arabic literature including De Lapide Bezaar ex Arabur Sententia (On Arabic writings on bezoar stones), and he summarized the characteristics of bezoars according to their animal and geographical origins. He also reported on the way in which they were produced and described their therapeutic effects (Bauhin 1625, pp. 75–94). In this very detailed study he dedicated a chapter to one of the most important effects ascribed to bezoars: the profuse perspiration they induced and its usefulness in promoting health: ‘Quomodo sanitate conferuet, sudorum promoueat, & nun vtiliter id fiat’ (Bauhin 1625, p. 193).
Semedo’s bezoartic cordial
In the first half of the seventeenth century the Portuguese physician João Curvo Semedo (1635–1719; Fig. 19) introduced the use of quinine for the cure of tertian and quartan fevers (malaria) in Portugal. He also used bezoar stones dissolved in a cordial, prepared personally in order minimize costs. The bezoars were available from the S Domingos pharmacy in Chiado Square, Lisbon. He prescribed this cordial mainly for malignant fevers that could not be cured by the use of quinine. He ascribed three properties to the cordial: it was excellent to restore the vital spirits, it was an excellent diaphoretic and, most importantly, it was an antidote.
João Curvo Semedo (1635–1719), Portuguese physician and pharmacist. Reproduced with permission of the Biblioteca da Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.
The cordial was made from porcupine bezoar stones from Malacca and Cananor snake bezoars, theriacs and mithridatum. He reported that Indian snake stones were highly effective when they were applied to poisonous bites (Semedo 1697, p. 639). ‘Snake stones’ or ‘snake bezoars’ (lapis serpentis, pedra de cobra), believed to be retrieved from the heads of those reptiles, were highly valued. They were small artificial stones made from a combination of several materials with special earths (Estes 1990). In the Líthica Orphéôs, snake-stones are referred to as the divine stones that healed Philoctetes’s wound, as mentioned in Homer’s Iliad (Opiano 1990, p. 384).
The Goa stone
By the late seventeenth century, in order to provide cheaper alternatives and to counteract the trade of dangerous counterfeits, the Portuguese Jesuits of India began to produce artificial bezoars in Goa. The ‘Pedra Cordial’ was called ‘Pedra de Goa’ by its author, Gaspar António, a Florentine Jesuit Lay Brother, living in India.
The Jesuits played a very important role in the diffusion of Eastern medicines. They recorded hundreds of eastern recipes in a wide range of manuscripts (Walker 2010). The Jesuit collection of medical recipes ‘Colecção de Receitas’ from the Jesuit’s Library of Rome in 1766 includes instructions on how to make artificial porcupine stones. One of the finest recipes from the Botica do collegio de Macao, shrouded in secrecy, included amber, musk, precious stones including emeralds, rubies, sapphires, topazes, garnets, white and red coral, ivory and scrapings of unicorn horn, stag horn and oriental bezoar as well as terra sigillata, a medicinal earth popular since classical times (Dannenfeldt 1984).
The origins and history of the recipe through to 1787, and the qualities of every component, formed the subject of a very detailed and valuable study by Duffin (2010a). A remarkable feature of this synthetic stone is the gradual reduction of the bezoar stone component in later recipes. These dark green coloured fabricated bezoars were produced in a range of sizes and were as valuable as the contemporary snake-stones. Both represent a kind of equivalent of modern generic compounds.
Although the Goa Stone was supposed to be cheaper, the demand for artificial bezoars was as great as the search for real bezoars, making both items very expensive. The lapis de Goa was imported into England up until the mid-eighteenth century, but for several reasons its use declined together with the decline of the bezoar stone (Duffin 2010b).
The end of the golden age of bezoars
The nineteenth century marks the decline of Hippocratic therapies and with it bezoars, unicorn preparations and theriacs were substituted for by new therapeutic agents. Two simple bezoar stones can be seen at the Museu da Farmácia de Lisboa. One specimen is an opened bezoar with four holes and the other is a German trichobezoar (Fig. 20). In his work Toxicologie Générale, Mathieu Orfilla (1787–1853), known as the Father of Toxicology, indicates that bezoar stones were no longer included in the treatment of poisoning, including by means of arsenic (Orfilla 1814). Nevertheless this old fashioned panacea continued to be cited in academic works.
Two bezoars. Opened bezoar with slice removed, perforated with four holes. Size: diameter, 8.50 cm; width, 90 g.; inventory no. 14132. German trichobezoar, nineteenth century (Germany). Size: diameter, 7.00 cm; inventory no. 14133. Reproduced with permission of the Museu de Farmácia de Lisboa.
Recent investigations of bezoar properties have been carried out by Gustaf Arrhenius and Andrew A. Benson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography; they showed that bezoar stones when immersed in an arsenic-laced solution would remove the poison. The two toxic compounds of arsenic, arsenate and arsenite are acted upon differently but effectively by bezoar stones. Arsenate is removed by being exchanged for phosphate in the mineral brushite, found in the stones, and arsenite bonds to sulphur compounds in the protein of degraded hair, a key component in bezoars (Malcom 1998).
From the eighteenth century onwards the powerful magical healing properties of bezoars were questioned more and more. There is some evidence that they had real pharmacological efficacy. Although they are still used in Eastern folk medicine, specific and more effective drugs have replaced them in modern Western medicine. The study of bezoars is an important topic in the history of toxicology, medicine, pharmacology, geology and art.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Christopher Duffin for his close and attentive reading of the manuscript, insightful suggestions and the fruitful exchange of ideas. I wish to thank Professor António Andrade for contributing to the interpretation of the Latin texts. I would also like to thank Professor Álvaro Sequeira Pinto the kind permission to reproduce the image of the unpublished bezoar of his collection.
- © The Geological Society of London 2013
References
- Article
- Abstract
- Bezoars, present and past
- The bezoars and other ancient alexipharmics
- The medicinal use of bezoars in Europe
- Trade and use by the Portuguese
- Oriental bezoars
- Modern alexipharmics
- Amatus Lusitanus and the origin of bezoars and snake-stones
- Bezoars from the New World
- Bezoars mounted as pieces of art
- Anselm Boetius de Boodt
- Bezoars and unicorn horns
- Rudolf II’s bezoars
- Mistrust of bezoars and Caspar Bauhin’s monography
- Semedo’s bezoartic cordial
- The Goa stone
- The end of the golden age of bezoars
- Acknowledgments
- References
- Figures & Data
- Info & Metrics