Mad Stones
You might recognize mad stones from their other name: bezoars. Mad stones are supposedly somewhat magical objects that have the ability to draw poison and disease out of bites, wounds, and more. Is there any truth to this old wives tale? Let's find out!
Mad stones, at first glance, appear to be spherical(ish) rocks. However, upon closer inspection mad stones are usually organically produced by cud-chewing animals like goats, cows, and deer. Think about this compared to a cat's hairball - an object filled with different organic materials that passes through an animal's interior and comes out different. Typically, mad stones are created when calcium and magnesium form around a small piece of non-digestible material. Over time, this thing continues to grow and it becomes hard and round. They can be of all different shapes and colors, but are usually about the size of a golf ball.
To effectively use a mad stone, you have to place it directly on the wound of someone who had been bitten or attacked by a poisonous or rabid animal. The stone would then be stuck to the wound and would fall off until all of the disease had been drawn out. The mad stone, naturally porous, would soak up all of the disease and the poison could then be extracted from the stone so it could be used again. Once cleansed, if continued to stick to the wound the process would continue until it didn't. Similar to leeching (except instead of blood, poison was being removed).
Rabies was one of the most common diseases that mad stones were said to cure, hence their folk name.
If you believe any of this at all, different stones from different animals (and even different kinds of the same animals) were said to have additional properties. For example, it was said that mad stones from a white deer were more powerful than brown deer.
Furthermore, it is said that if you try to buy or steal a mad stone it would lose all of its effectiveness. However, this may have been a rumor started for those who were worried about their stones getting stolen, as they were considered rare.
Today, the effectiveness of them is obviously questioned and there has never been definitive proof of their ability to work.
Thanks to Samantha Cardimon for the blogstonishing suggestion!
The above image depicts a 17th century Bezoar stone with case and stand. The stone itself is mercury-gilded. This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
