boldly challenged; and in the course of the paper the author states that the price varied from about £3 to £5 per ounce in London. He mentions that he had asked a London druggist, one "of the upper Size," how many ounces of bezoar stones he sold yearly. He said about 500 ounces. I presume he was a wholesale druggist. Perhaps this is implied by the expression "of the upper Size." Mr. Slare uses this fact in support of his suggestion that a large proportion of the imports of these precious commodities, though they came from India or Persia right enough, had never been inside any wild goat, antelope, or ape. He records experiments which go to show this, and also gave letters from medical officers in India, men quite competent to judge, who manifested in this particular a surprising degree of innocence. It would have been strange if the wily oriental had refrained from practising his skill on his confiding Western customers.
Mr. Slare tells us that the stone was only found in about one goat out of seven killed, and that it took some twelve stones to make an ounce, which worked out to nearly 50,000 goats to be slain annually to keep this one London druggist supplied.
The original use of the bezoar was as an antidote to poisons. It came to be the valued remedy for all kinds of fevers, was applied externally in many skin diseases, and had the reputation of being able to cure even leprosy. The dose of the oriental bezoar was from 4 to 16 grains; of the occidental 6 to 30 grains. They were also carried about in gold or silver boxes as amulets. In Portugal in time of plague the stones were let out at about the equivalent of ten shillings a day. Some designed for this use may still be seen in museums. Bezoar stones were required to be of an olive-greenish
