THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



9 



this can be inferred from the fact that 

 the compound was officially recognized 

 by the English pharmacopoeia until 1788. 



A THIRTEENTH CENTURY FORERUNNER OF 

 DR. WILEY 



Emperor Frederick II of Sicily, in 

 1240 or 1 24 1, published the first pure 

 food and drugs act. He was about 700 

 years ahead of Doctor Wiley, for he 

 specified strict regulations of the standard 

 of drug purity, and provided for drug 

 inspectors, and fined all offenders. 



The practice of medicine was also regu- 

 lated. A physician was required to have 

 a diploma from a university before he 

 could study medicine ; then he took a 

 three-year course in the school of medi- 

 cine and one year practice under a prac- 

 ticing physician. Special postgraduate 

 work in anatomy was required if he was 

 to do surgery. 



All this was in the so-called "dark 

 ages." Even the fees of physicians and 

 pharmacists were strictly regulated by 

 law and were in purchasing value about 

 the same as the charges of the present 

 day. Physicians were not allowed to own 

 drug-stores and drug adulterators were 

 severely dealt with. 



The idea of general antidotes for poi- 

 sons was a very ancient and very gen- 

 erally accepted belief. Some of us prob- 

 ably remember the "mad-stones" which 

 not so very long ago were applied to mad- 

 dog bites to "draw out the poison." 

 These mad-stones vere unquestionably 

 direct traditional descendants of the be- 

 zoar stones of ancient days. 



BEZOAR STONES RENTED TO PLAGUE 

 VICTIMS 



Bezoar stones acquired their reputation 

 in the East, among the Arab practitioners. 

 Avenzoar, a great Arabian writer on 

 medicine, who lived in Seville about the 

 year 1000, was the first European prac- 

 titioner to write about these supposedly 

 wonderful stones. But a little over a 

 century ago the Shah of Persia sent his 

 brother monarch, the Emperor Napoleon, 

 three bezoar stones as a very proper 

 precaution against the effects of poison. 



Bezoar stones were used as a general 

 antidote against poisons, from four to 



ten grains being given at a dose. Exter- 

 nally they had a wide variety of uses, 

 being applied in fevers, in various skin 

 diseases, and even as a cure for leprosy. 

 Nobles and princes carried them about in 

 jeweled boxes as amulets. Wily specu- 

 lators, in times of epidemics, as during 

 the plague in Portugal, rented them out 

 at the equivalent of about £5 a day, re- 

 quiring a bond for their return. 



Many kinds of bezoar were sold, but 

 the most valuable were the Oriental kind, 

 lapis bezoar orientate. This came from 

 Persia and was obtained from the intes- 

 tines of a Persian wild goat. It was 

 merely a sort of petrification formed by 

 the digestive juices about some foreign 

 substance in the goat's intestines. But 

 the medical authorities of that day 

 thought that the stone was formed by 

 some mysterious medicinal plant on which 

 these animals fed. 



A certain Oriental ape also yielded 

 bezoar stones. The directions were first 

 to catch your ape and then give him an 

 emetic. Similar stones were obtained 

 from the llamas of Peru, and from the 

 Swiss chamois. But the Eastern prod- 

 ucts commanded the market, and were 

 said to have sold for ten times their 

 weight in gold. 



THE SALE OF IMITATION BEZOAR STONES 

 EXPOSED 



Naturally, this supposedly valuable 

 stone would be imitated. It was, and a 

 certain Mr. Slare, a Fellow of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons in London, read a 

 paper in 1714, in which he exposed the 

 substitution. One wholesale druggist told 

 Mr. Slare he had 500 ounces of bezoar 

 in stock, and Air. Slare, being an old- 

 time statistician, estimated that it would 

 require the slaughter of 50,000 goats 

 annually to supply this one dealer. As 

 no such terrible mortality had occurred 

 among the Persian goats, Air. Slare asked 

 the pertinent question : "Where did they 

 get it?" 



In the records of the Royal Society of 

 Apothecaries, May 25, 1630, is the fol- 

 lowing entry : "Pretended bezoar stones 

 sent by the Lord Mayor to be viewed 

 were found to be false and counterfeit 

 and fit to be destroyed, and the whole 



