The bezoar stone: a princely antidote, the Távora Sequeira Pinto Collection-Oporto.

Bezoar stones, once used as universal antidotes and panaceas, but currently regarded as costly and useless medicines of the past, are a major milestone in the history of toxicology. Arabic physicians had been using bezoars in medicine from the 8th century onwards. In the 16th century, the Portuguese controlled bezoar trade from India, and the Portuguese doctors Garcia de Orta, Amatus Lusitanus, and Cristobal Acosta introduced the medicinal use of Oriental bezoars to European medical literature. Some criticism aside, leading European doctors prescribed bezoars mainly as powerful antidotes. Five bezoars that now adorn the Távora Sequeira Pinto Collection in Oporto testify to the allure and glory of bezoars at the height of their golden age, when they equalled the splendour of gems and noble minerals that dominated the Eastern and Western lithotherapy.The end of the 18th century marked the end of ancient panaceas. This article focuses on the therapeutic and apotropaic use of bezoars.

Post-mortem Cesarean section and embryotomy: myth, medicine, and gender in Greco-Roman culture.

This article focuses on cesarean section carried out after the mother's death to rescue the living infant and on embryotomy, a medical procedure to save the mother described as early as the Hippocratic writings (5th to 4th century B.C.) and practiced until the times of Paul of Aegina (7th century A.D). The available sources do not mention cesarean section on a living mother to save the infant. On the other side, writings on embryotomy state clearly that Greek and Roman physicians strove hard to save women's lives. Written in ancient, male-centered societies, these texts convey an unequivocal positive attitude towards women, despite current misogynist assessments by philosophers and physicians who considered women inferior, based on their organic and biological features.