Home Gudgeon and gist Language Log Bezoar

Bezoar

Language Log 2021-08-02

Yesterday I went to Philadelphia's famed Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians.  I hadn't been there for about 35 years, so it was nice to reacquaint myself with some favored old exhibits (human beings with long horns growing out of their forehead, fetuses at all stages of formation and deformation, bodies with extra heads and limbs, gigantic tumors and colons, etc.), though a few of the most famous items had disappeared (e.g., shrunken heads, apparently because they had been "unethically procured").

One of the most striking exhibits — for me, since most people probably would not pay much, if any attention to it — was the one about bezoars.  They are nondescript objects that look like stony balls.  Even in section, they are not very exciting to look at, because they are basically a hard, indigestible mass of material such as hair, plant fibers, or seeds that form in the stomach or intestines of animals, especially ruminants, sometimes also humans.

Bezoars had value because they were believed to have the power of a universal antidote against any poison. Tradition held that a drinking glass which contained a bezoar would neutralize any poison poured into it. The word "bezoar" ultimately derives from Persian pād-zahr (پادزهر), which literally means "antidote."

Ox bezoars (cow bezoars) are used in Chinese herbology, where they are called niu-huang (牛黃) or calculus bovis. These are gallstones, or substitutes, from ox or cattle gall bladder bile. There are artificial calculus bovis used as substitutes. These are manufactured from cholic acid derived from bovine bile. In some products, they claim to remove toxins from the body.

(source)

I probably first encountered bezoars in my research on medieval Chinese medicine about half a century ago.  Inasmuch as I had never heard anyone speak the word, I just made up my own pronunciation, and it consisted of three syllables:  beh-zoe-are.  I knew that was likely wrong, but that's how it registered in my brain.  Now that I am writing this post about "bezoar" and will undoubtedly be talking about it to others more often, I had better learn how to pronounce it properly.  Here are some dictionary phonetic spellings: 

1. bē′zôr′    (American Heritage)

2. ˈbiːzɔː    (Collins)

3. ˈbi zɔr, -zoʊr     (Random House)

4.

(Wiktionary)

If you want to hear the word "bezoar" pronounced by reliable sources, here are the Director and the Curator of the Mütter Museum talking about these mysterious specimens.

Let's delve a bit more deeply into the etymology of "bezoar":

From French bézoard, based on Arabic بَازَهْر‎ (bāzahr), from Middle Persian pʾtzhl (pādzahr, “bezoar, antidote”). In ancient times, bezoars from animals were ground up and ingested as remedies for various maladies and as antidotes to poisons.

(source)

1540s, "stone used as an antidote against poison," via Medieval Latin, from Arabic bazahr, from Persian pad-zahr "counter-poison," from pad "protecting, guardian, master" (from Iranian *patar-, source also of Avestan patar-, from PIE *pa-tor-, from root *pa- "to feed, protect") + zahr "poison" (from Old Iranian *jathra, from PIE *gwhn-tro-, from root *gwhen- "to strike, kill;" see bane). Later in reference to a concoction from solid matter found in the stomachs and intestines of ruminants, which was held to have antidotal qualities (1570s).

(source)

As a Sino-Indian specialist, I was deeply curious about how "bezoar" got its odd-sounding Chinese name:  niúhuáng 牛黃 ("cow yellow").  It turns out that the term was borrowed from Sanskrit.  Most interesting of all to me is that it entered the Sinitic lexicon in pre-Buddhist times.  See ZHU Qingzhi, "Some Linguistic Evidence for Early Cultural Exchange Between China and India", Sino-Platonic Papers, 66 (March, 1995), 1-7 (pdf).

The Sanskrit origin of the Chinese niúhuáng 牛黃 ("cow yellow") is gorocanā गोरोचना ("bright yellow orpiment prepared from the bile of cattle; yellow patch for the head of a cow; bezoar").  In his article, Zhu discusses five such pre-Buddhist borrowings from Sanskrit into Sinitic.  It is telling that four out of five of these early Sanskrit borrowings in Sinitic have to do with go गो / niú 牛 ("cattle").  The paramount importance of cows in Indian culture is well known.

Zihan Guo comments:

It is fascinating to know that cultural exchange between Chinese and Sanskrit on the word niúhuáng 牛黃, as I have always been bewildered by the expression "cow's yellow." The medicine my mother has been taking is called Niúhuáng jiědú piàn 牛黃解毒片 ("Cow's yellow poison dispelling tablets") , which is commonly used by Chinese people to treat shànghuǒ 上火 (TCM [traditional Chinese medicine] "to suffer from excessive internal heat; to become inflamed; to have inflammation") (source) and is very effective. I bet every Chinese family keeps some at home in case they eat too much spicy food as did my mom. As the name and the sources you cite indicate, it has the effect of neutralizing poison, and huǒ 火 ("excess heat") is a kind of dú 毒 ("poison").

A final note on the historical significance of bezoar:  when we say "caveat emptor / buyer beware", this phrase was inspired by a celebrated court case involving bezoar.

Chandelor v Lopus (1603) 79 ER 3 is a famous case in the common law of England. It stands for the distinction between warranties and mere affirmations and announced the rule of caveat emptor (buyer beware).

A man paid £100 for what he thought was a bezoar stone. This is a stone that forms in animals' intestinal systems, and was believed to have magical healing properties. The seller said it was a bezoar stone, which turned out to be false. The buyer sued for the return of the £100 purchase price.

How the claimant discovered that the bezoar did not work is not discussed in the report.

The issue for the court was whether the sales pitch had been the usual big talk of the market merchants in the plying of their wares, or if there had been indeed an actual deceit in the transaction.

The Exchequer Court held the buyer had no right to his money back, saying "the bare affirmation that it was a bezoar stone, without warranting it to be so, is no cause of action." The majority of the judges held that the buyer was required to show either that the seller knew the stone was not a bezoar, in which case the seller was liable for deceit, or that the seller had warranted (contractually guaranteed) that the stone was a bezoar, in which case the seller would be liable for breach of warranty. Since the seller in this case was not alleged to have done either of these things, the buyer's claim failed.

Chandelor long stood as an impediment to any common law development of consumer protection systems.

Only in the nineteenth century did the law begin to evolve a doctrine of implied warranty.

This judgment predated a common law recognition of fraudulent misrepresentation by 180 years.

(source)

Appearances can be deceiving — doubly so.

 

Selected readings