The “apple of ox” (bezoar): ethnomedicine, history and science

Abstract

Through activities of teaching of sciences at municipal schools in the city of Olinda (State of Pernambuco, Brazil), students have recorded several alternative conceptions associated to the practices of popular medicine, such as the use of medicinal plants and animals. Amongst the most interesting medicinal resources cited, the “apple of ox” (maçã-do-boi or bezoar) standed out. It is known and used by the members of rural origin from that community. Through interviews with those people, several medicinal uses of “maçã-do-boi” were recorded, including the treatment for breathing diseases and masculine sexual impotence. The corpus of folk medicine linked to its use was recorded as well. On the other hand, the veterinary medicine identifies the bezoars as concretions of pathological effects in the digestion of ruminants. Through a bibliographical research in historical sources, beginning from Arabian medieval medicine to the Iberian Peninsula and the Portuguese settlers of Brazilian Northeast, during the 16th century, the antiquity of the use of bezoars was verified in the treatment of several human illnesses, among which stand out its use as antidote against poisons and in the treatment of the masculine sexual impotence. We conclude that the existence and use of bezoars to present days reveal both the resistance power and cultural reproduction of the traditional knowledge, even when it is submitted to the pressures of modern urban environment.