Talk:Bezoar

Bamboo Pearl Redirect?

Why does 'bamboo pearl' redirect here? I'm trying to find information on the authenticity or lack thereof of the notion that some species of bamboo produce some sort of stonelike object or "pearl" naturally. The idea seems extremely outlandish to me, but nature is frequently outlandish, so I would like some actual data. It's bad enough that I can't find anything useful on Google, but I can't see any reason the term redirects here to Bezoar on Wikipedia. The two topics just seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Perhaps a page on "pearl hoaxes" would be a good idea? The whole 'coconut pearl' concept could go there too. I'm sure there are others. 75.18.179.81 (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Harry Potter

Bezoars are given a passing mention in the Harry Potter books. The Potions Master, Severus Snape, tests Harry's knowledge in order to humiliate him on his first day at Hogwarts. The knowledge comes in useful, however in order to impress Horace Slughorn, and to save his friend Ron Weasley's life when he is poisoned.

Is this particularly noteworthy or relevant? Seems to me it should be deleted. Bezoars are mentioned in plenty of literature, we're not about to start listing them all. Ethan0 09:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Ethan is a party pooper. Harry Potter apparently has a certain amount of modern cultural relevance, possibly more then many of the other bezoar-laden works. By citing this text as containing "bezoar" it could provide some context for those completely unfamiliar with the entity. Maybe if Ethan is such a bezoar scholar he can give us some other examples of prominent literary works with bezoar references (either explicit or implied).--69.137.157.233 01:26, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I can think of, offhand, only The Sandman: Dream Country. I know I've seen them in other works as well; if I think of or happen across more I shall mention them. -Ethan (talk) • 2006-02-28 19:52 (UTC)

I think the Harry Potter passage should stay, but it doesn't belong in the "Uses of Bezoars" section. So I have separated it to "References in Popular Culture". Also, the third episode in season five of "House MD" ("Adverse Events") is about a patient whose condition is eventually unravelled as having been caused by a bezoar.Tsumugi (talk) 08:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I vote that there should be at least a small "cultural significance" paragraph on this article. I came here from looking up Mary Anning, the person who found the first dinosaur fossil, and somewhere on her page it mentioned "bezoar," which I learned was a coprolite, and I thought, "isn't that also mentioned in Harry Potter?" I came here and found it was not on the article, but instead stuck on the talk page because some editor thinks it's irrelevant and the list of cultural references to bezoars would be too large. Well, I came here to satisfy a valid question about JK Rowling's sense of humor, and find a humorless troll-editor has decided that my question is invalid. I disagree that my question is not valid, and wikipedia is the perfect forum in which my question ought to be answerable, and not on the talk page. Cellodont (talk) 12:48, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

effectiveness?

Is there any evidence on the effects (or lack thereof) of bezoar on poison?

Yes. It is mentioned under Arsenic in "Principles of Forensic Toxicology". I have added a reference to the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Filksinger (talk • contribs) 18:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Hair?

I was trying to disprove what I thought to be an Urban Legend, wherin you could die or get digestion problems from ingesting your own hair, but I find I cannot conclusivly do so. Do human beings also get bezoars or are they limited to calcium?

The museum link seems to be conclusive, but wouldn't the few strands of hair ingested pass though? I believe snopes listed it once, but I cannot locate it. Sim 05:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Fixed it in the article.

Origin of the word 'bezoar'?

The article states "the word "bezoar" ultimately comes from the Persian pâdzahr" but this medical paper states "The term Bezoar comes from the Arabic 'badzehr' or from the Persian 'panzer' both meaning counterpoison or antidote"[1].

Can anybody clarify where the word originated and in which language? And then how it spread into other languages? Hamster128 10:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In Persian, "pâd" and "zahr" are two words and mean "anti" and "poison" respectively. The sound of "pi" doesn't exists in Arabic therefor all P's are converted to B's and so Padzahr becomes Badzahr. This word cannot be Arabic since stems are used to create a new word. his word construction is similar to English constructions as both Persian and English are Indo-European languages. Arabic on the other hand uses a different way to construct new words. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.3.151 (talk) 01:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Relationship to Snake-Stones?

Much of the material I've collected on snake stones mentions bezoar stones. (see Talk:Snake-Stones)

Is there a difference between a bezoar stone and a snake stone? Hamster128 11:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

References

I have supplied the requested references for the second and third paragraph for the article. Filksinger 18:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The reference for the alchemical bezoar is from http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-idx?type=turn&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&entity=HistSciTech000900240248 which is a digitised version of the 1728 Cyclopedia. I see someone has tried to make it so in the text, but failed miserably, and I don't yet know how to do references. I'd be grateful if someone could improve it properly. 82.41.153.28 (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

I think the page has been vandalised Brain fork 20:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Why do people keep removing Image:Long-haired-cat-hairball.jpg as a copyright violation? It claims to be self-released into the public domain. -Seventh Holy Scripture (talk) 18:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

The article lead currently treats "bezoar" and "enterolith" as synonyms. However, the body describes "bezoar" only in the sense of "hairball" (see Wiktionary). In the medical literature, "bezoar" sometimes is used to mean "enterolith", but I suggest putting far less emphasis on that fact in this article. I will remove "enterolith" from the lead. Someone please rewrite the lead to better define bezoar. Thanks! --Una Smith (talk) 04:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, I recommend moving the etymology out of the history section to Wiktionary. --Una Smith (talk) 04:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Additional problems: much of the content, apart from the history section, is actually disambiguation. The article may need to be made into a disambiguation page, plus a separate, expanded article about the historical use of the term in the sense of a magical object. See Wikipedia:Writing better articles. --Una Smith (talk) 19:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Stones?

It may be helpful to readers who browse through categories, but would adding this article to Category:Stones be too inaccurate? -- œ^™ 22:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Śarīra?

Does anyone know if Bezoar is related to Sarira in Buddhism? Kowloonese (talk) 18:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

A "cook at King's court"

Which king? Varlaam (talk) 20:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

chemistry

It might be interesting to explain how bezoars are formed.

There's a House episode in which drugs trapped in a bezoar produce bizarre symptoms. It's explained that this particular type of bezoar was caused by taking large amounts of antacid, which prevented food from being fully digested. This seemed odd, because my understanding is that the digestive process is alkaline, and stomach acid regulates it by slowing it down. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 12:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

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Proposed merge with Porcupine dates

Subject not notable on its own merits. Suggest merging into bezoar article Rogermx (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Mineral component?

Do any of the 'stones' actually have minerals in them or are they just clumps of other stuff? The photo shows things that look a lot like actual stones.