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 tint, to be striated, and to yield a musky odour. They were further expected to strike a green colour when rubbed on white paper which had previously been prepared with chalk. The alchemists prepared a mineral bezoar, by treating butter of antimony with nitric acid. They got antimonious acid. The livers and hearts of vipers dried in the sun furnished the animal bezoar; and a stony concretion sometimes found in cocoa-nuts, and in high repute among the Malays as a medicine was called vegetable bezoar or calatippe. The importance attached to bezoar stones in the seventeenth century, and, incidentally, their liability to falsification, are illustrated by a minute in the records of the Society of Apothecaries, dated May 25th, 1630, as follows:-- Pretended bezar stones sent by the Lord Mayor to be viewed were found to be false and counterfiet and fitt to be destroyed and the whole table [or as we should say, the Court] certified the same to the Lord Mayor. A little later, it appears that the case of these stones was tried at the Guildhall, a jury composed partly of druggists and partly of apothecaries being empannelled. This jury confirmed the verdict of the table of apothecaries and the bezoar stones were duly burnt. Three bezoar stones were sent by the Shah of Persia as a royal gift for his brother the Emperor Napoleon, only a hundred years ago.