Lapis Hystricis, c1745-1807

Description

Glass jar with glass lid and paper labels, containing one stone from the gall bladder of a porcupine, known as Pedra del Porco or Lapis hystricinus. From the Burges Collection.

Text on labels reads ‘Catal. Mat. Med. p. 127, no. 73’ and ‘LAPIS HYSTRICIS’.

The stones were suspended in liquid to create an infusion.

Lemery (as an addition in the translation of Pomet’s Compleat History of Druggs) says that Pedro de[l] Porco is a type of Bezoar that is used ‘as a great Preservative against Poison, and [reckoned] very proper to cure a Malady they call Mordoxi, which comes from an irritated Bile, which causes those that are seiz’d with it to be worse than them that have the Plague. It is likewise us’d for the Small-pox, epidemical Fevers, in hysterical Cases, and for the Stoppage of the Courses.’