# Bezoar stone

*From the Persian *panzehr* or the Arabic *badzehr*, “counterpoison”*

**Known today as.** A concretion formed in the stomach of goats and other animals.

Kind: Animal

## What does modern science say?

No bezoar is a universal antidote: Paré’s trial showed that it could not cure all poisons. Today the word names not an antidote but a medical problem: a bezoar in a human stomach, from swallowed hair or persimmons, may need endoscopic or surgical removal.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **ellagic acid**: 72–89 per cent of goat bezoar, with urolithins
- **hair**: in the hair bezoars of the human stomach

**Mechanism.** A stone that grows little by little, in scales like an onion’s, in the stomach of a goat (Paré). Paré tested it on a condemned cook given sublimate, who died within seven hours; bezoars were used above all as antidotes to arsenic, the poison most used in European courts (Barroso, 2013).

**Standing.** Out of use since about 1800 (Barroso); Paré had already told the king that no antidote serves against all poisons, each needing its own contrary.

## What lore surrounds it?

Kings owned them and had some mounted as jewels.

Paré’s cook took sublimate and then the stone, and died within seven hours; the king commanded the stone to be burned. In the sixteenth century a bezoar was worth ten times its weight in gold.

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Arabic physicians.** Brought it into Western medicine in the twelfth century, as an antidote to arsenic (Barroso); Paré gives its Arabic name, *Bedezahar*, “the preservers of life.”

**Ambroise Paré.** Recounts that a cook condemned to hang accepted poison in exchange for his life if the bezoar saved him; it did not, and he died in agony.

## Sources

- Ambroise Paré, *Œuvres*.
- Paré, A. (1575). *Œuvres*, “Discours de la licorne.”
- Eng, K., and Kay, M. (2012). Gastrointestinal bezoars: history and current treatment paradigms. *Gastroenterology & Hepatology* 8: 776–778.
- Fung, H.-Y., et al. (2025). Quality analysis of raw material and products of goat bezoar (Houzao), a mysterious traditional medicine. *Phytochemical Analysis* 36: 2182–2196.
- Paré, A. (1575). *Les Oeuvres*, book on poisons; trans. Johnson (1634).
- Barroso, M. D. S. (2013). “Bezoar stones, magic, science and art,” in *A History of Geology and Medicine*. Geological Society Special Publication 375.

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*Bezoar stone.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/bezoar-stone

Historical description, not medical advice.