BEZOAR, in Natural History and Medicine, a general name for certain animal-substances supposed to be effectual in preventing the fatal consequences of poison. The word comes from the Persian badecher, bazeber, or pahazar, which signifies an antidote.
The first mention made of bezoar is in Avenzoar, an Arabian physician, who gives a very romantic account of its origin. He describes it as generated of the tears or gum of the eyes of stags; who, after eating serpents, used to run into the water up to the nose, where they stood till their eyes began to ooze a humour, which, collecting under the eye-lids, gradually thickened and coagulated, till, being grown hard, it was thrown off by the animal in rubbing frequently. Other opinions no less fabulous obtained till the time of Garcias al Horto, physician to the Portuguese vice-roy of the Indies, who gave the first genuine account of it. Kempfer afterwards gave a description of it, with some new particulars.
The bezoar is a calculous concretion found in the stomach of certain animals of the goat kind. See CAPRA. It is composed of concentrical coats surrounding one another, with a little cavity in the middle, containing a bit of wood, straw, hair, or the like substances.
There are two sorts of bezoar; one brought from Persia and the East-Indies, the other from the Spanish West-Indies. The first or best sort, called oriental bezoar, is of a shining dark-green or olive colour, and an even smooth surface; on removing the outward coat, that which lies underneath it appears likewise smooth and shining. The occidental has a rough surface, and less of a green colour than the foregoing; it is likewise much heavier, more brittle, and of a looser texture; the coats are thicker, and on breaking exhibit a number of fibres curiously interwoven. The oriental is generally less than a walnut; the occidental for the most part larger, and sometimes as big as a goose egg. The first is universally most esteemed, and is the only sort now retained by the London college; the Edinburgh, in the edition of their pharmacopoeia preceding the present, directed both; but they now seem to allow them to be used promiscuously, retaining in their catalogue only the name bezoar lapis.
This stone is in high esteem among the Persians, and even of greater value than in Europe; which, with sundry other circumstances needless to relate here, has given occasion to many to suspect, that the true bezoar is never brought to us. Some authors relate with great confidence, that all the stones commonly sold under this name are artificial compositions. That some of them are so, is evident; hence the great differences in the accounts which different persons have given of their qualities:
Bezoar
Fossil Bezoar.
qualities: the stones examined by Slare as oriental bezoar did not dissolve in acids; those which Grew and Boyle made trial of, did; those employed by Geoffroy (in some experiments related in the French memoirs 1710) did not seem to be acted on by rectified spirits; whilst some of those examined by Neumann at Berlin almost totally dissolved therein. The common mark of the goodness of this stone, is its striking a deep green colour on white paper that has been rubbed with chalk.
Bezoar was not known to the ancient Greeks, and is first taken notice of by the Arabians (as above mentioned), who extol it in a great variety of disorders, particularly against poisons. Later writers also bestow extraordinary commendations on it as a sudorific and alexipharmac; virtues to which it certainly has no pretence. It has no smell or taste, is not degeestible in the stomach of the animal in which it is found, and is scarce capable of being acted on by any of the juices of the human body. It cannot be considered in any other light than as an absorbent; and is much the weakest of all the common substances of that class. It has been given to half a dram, and sometimes a whole dram, without any sensible effect; though the general dose (on account of its great price) is only a few grains.