Ambrose Paré, who wrote in the later half of the sixteenth century, was one of the few eminent doctors who discredited the alleged medicinal virtue of the bezoards. He was surgeon to Charles IX, and relates that one day, the king being at Clermont, a Spanish nobleman brought him a bezoar stone which he assured him was an antidote against all poisons. The king sent for Paré and asked him if he knew any substance which would annul the effects of any poison. Paré said that could not be, for there were many sorts of poisons which acted in very different ways. The Spanish nobleman, however, maintained that this stone was a universal antidote, and the king was eager to test the question. So the Provost of the Palace was sent for and asked if he had any criminal in his charge condemned to death. He said he had a cook who had stolen two silver dishes, and who was to be hanged the next day. The offer was thereupon made to the cook that he should take a poison, and an alleged antidote immediately afterwards, and if he escaped with his life he should go free. The cook gladly consented, and an apothecary was ordered to prepare a deadly draught and give it, and to follow this with a dose of the bezoar. This was done. The poor wretch lived for about seven hours in terrible agony, which Paré tried in vain to relieve. After his death Paré opened him and showed that the antidote had no effect at all. It was sublimate which had been given. “And the king commanded that the stone should be thrown into the fire; which was done.” Paré’s authority was considerable, but it was by no means strong enough to destroy public faith in the bezoar. According to Pomet and Lemery the demand for the stones was so great in France more than a century later that it was difficult to get them genuine except at fancy prices. A stone of 4¼ oz. was sold for 2,000 livres (say £75). In Savary’s “Dictionnaire de Commerce” (1741) it is stated that when bezoars arrived at Amsterdam they fetched from 300 to 400 livres apiece. They were bought by rich citizens either to serve as presents, or to be kept in their families. GASCOYNE’S OR GASCOIGN’S POWDER.