The Mad Stone

Sandra E. Rogers     Collections Registrar, SH Museum  

                                               

One of the most intriguing artifacts held in the collections of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum is a “madstone” donated to the Museum in 1978.  The term “madstone” refers to its use as a treatment for rabies.  But, before there were “madstones,” there were bezoars.

McPhail Madstone of Houston County

Bezoar stones have, since ancient times, been used as a treatment for fever as well as an antidote for poison. These “stones” are not really stones. Rather they are compressed concretions of hair and vegetable matter found in the stomach or intestines of an animal, usually a ruminant. They come in all shapes and sizes and have been studied over the centuries by men of science eager to understand the source of the believed magical cure. Gaspard Bauhin, the Swiss botanist who developed a classification of plants in 1596, wrote that “even today princes and nobles prize it (bezoar) very highly and guard it in their treasures among their most precious gems; so that the physicians are forced, sometimes against their better judgment, to employ it as a remedy.  So great are its virtues that many imitations are made.”   

The most valuable bezoars are probably the dozen found in the wreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which sunk in 1622.  The Spanish ship was carrying treasures from the New World back to Spain when it sank off the Florida Keys.  (The Navigator: Newsletter of Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, 1998)

Tad Lincoln with his father looking at a photo album

The Museum’s bezoar/madstone was not used to protect a royal personage from poison or cure a 16^th Century Arab from fever, but it certainly does have its own claim to fame.  The Museum’s madstone’s undocumented history begins in Yalabusha County, Mississippi.  A young boy named John McPhail took the madstone from the intestines of an albino deer that he killed there in the 1840’s.  The madstone was reportedly used to cure snake bites, insect bites, and rabies in Mississippi before the stone was brought to Houston County, Texas, sometime before the U. S. Civil War.  When he joined the Confederate cause, John McPhail carried his madstone along and was soon known as “Madstone McPhail” for his treatment of fellow rebel soldiers.  According to McPhail family tradition, McPhail was asked to treat Abraham Lincoln’s son, Tad, after Tad was bitten by a rabid dog. At the time, McPhail was a prisoner of war near Washington, D.C.   John McPhail and his madstone returned to Houston County after the war where the McPhail family continued to use the special stone for various sorts of maladies. (Madstone McPhail, by Jack E. Scott, 2005)

 

There seems to be a very strict set of procedures when using a madstone. The “stone” must be boiled in sweet milk before being applied to a wound.  It is reported that the “stone” sticks to the wound until all of the “poison” has been removed at which time the “stone” falls away.  The “stone” must then be boiled again in milk to remove the poison from the “stone”.

Madstones have reportedly been found in all types of animals.  Early civilizations made use of bezoars found in sheep and goats, but in North America the most common madstones are found in deer or antelope.  One famous Appalachian madstone was described as “smooth and red, as large as a man’s thumb with one flat, white side.”  

The famous madstone of Vacherie

The famous madstone of Vacherie, Louisiana is described as a black agate. It has been used by the Gravois family for almost 200 years as a cure for bites from cats, skunks, snakes, and spiders. Family history reports that the madstone was given to the Gravois family by a Native American who was cared for in illness by the Gravois family in the early 1800’s.  (www.richardgravois.com)

Another madstone found closer to home is the Noell Madstone of Alto, Cherokee County.  A history of the Noell madstone was recorded in “And Horns on the Toads” by Michael Ahern (Texas Folklore Society Publication XXIX). A Dr. Noell brought the madstone to Texas from Virginia in 1860.  The use of the madstone continued after Dr. Noell’s death by his daughter, Miss Fannie, who documented treatments in the family ledger.  “R. W. Ivy, a prosperous landowner of this county was in town today en route to Alto in search of the madstone, he having been bitten last night near his home by what he considers a mad dog.” (Lufkin News 1901)

In the Mohler Family Bible Records 1832-1905 (Library of Virginia Digital Collection) is a description of another madstone brought from Virginia to Texas. “Measuring one and one-half inches by seven-eighths of an inch, the madstone has been used on horses as well as people.  The stone is light brown and is of porous construction.  Besides rabies infection, the stone has been used to alleviate pain when any of the children received bites from ants, bees, or other insects.”  This description is a near match for the madstone located in the Sam Houston Museum.  The McPhail madstone measures one and one-half inch in length and seven-eighths of an inch across.  It is a light weight (.6 oz.), oval shaped, honey colored stone.  The McPhail stone is also very smooth which seems to be a common characteristic of North American madstones.

I hope that any Walker County citizen in possession of a “madstone” will bring it by the Museum for a comparison with the McPhail stone.  In my research of bezoars, I found an interesting article about the Chinese use of porcupine bezoars, but that is definitely a story for another day.

Additional info:  Madstones and Hydrophobia Skunks by J. Frank Dobie