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204 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
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also
remarked that the solution of the stone blackened the teeth and those
who used it were therefore obliged to take great care that the medicine
should not touch their teeth.
We
learn that a genuine stone was valued at 50 gold crowns (about $125) in
Calcutta; another is said to have brought 130 crowns ($325). De Boot
states that a drachm of the powdered stone was worth two ducats ($5) in
Lower
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Germany and four ($10) in Upper Germany; why, he does not say.
Garcias
ab Horto, a Portuguese physician of Goa, in India, describes a variety
of the bezoar called the Lapis Malacensis, used as an antidote for
poisons in Malacca. This was found in the liver of the hedgehog, and
the substance was held in such esteem that of two found in the
fifteenth century, one was sent as a very valuable gift to the
Portuguese Viceroy at Goa. Garcias describes this as being of a light
purple hue, bitter to the taste and smooth as the skin of a toad. The
custom was to steep the stone in water for some time and then to give
this water to the patient as a medicinal draught. A specimen was
brought to Rome from Portugal by Cardinal Alexandrinus, and Mercato
states that he had seen a test of its virtues as an antidote for
poisons. In the opinion of De Boot: "As an antidote for any poison
which may have been administered, nothing more excellent than the
bezoar stone can be had. "6 It
•"De
lapidibus," Lug. Bat., 1636, p. 370. See also Mercati, " Metallc-theca
Vaticana," Romae, 1719, p. 179, with figure of stone from, hedgehog.
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