Recycled bezoar
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From Michael David Johnson:
I found this sign (image below) on Queen's Road West near Exit A of the Sai Ying Pun MTR in Hong Kong. The shop was closed but I think it's a Chinese Medicine shop. Google gives me no results for "recycled bezoar" or "bezoar reciclado," so I seek your knowledge. Bad translation or just something that's not (ever) written in English? I assume from the Portuguese that this must be popular in Macau too?
We already know a lot about bezoar (see under "Selected readings"), but that was more than three years ago, so it's time for a brief refresher:
A mass, usually of hair or undigested vegetable matter, found in a human or animal's intestines, similar to a hairball.
From Spanish bezoar and/or French bézoard, based on Arabic بَازَهْر (bāzahr), from Middle Persian pʾtzhl (pādzahr, “bezoar, antidote”), from a compound of words meaning “to protect” and “poison” (literally “killing thing”), thus a bezoar was “that which protects against poison”. In ancient times, bezoars from animals were ground up and ingested as remedies for various maladies and as antidotes to poisons.
A bezoar (/ˈbizɔːr/ BEE-zor) is a mass often found trapped in the gastrointestinal system, though it can occur in other locations. A pseudobezoar is an indigestible object introduced intentionally into the digestive system.
There are several varieties of bezoar, some of which have inorganic constituents and others organic. The term has both modern (medical, scientific) and traditional usage.
As was shown in the first entry of the "Selected readings", the Indian term for bezoar, meaning "cow yellow", was one of the earliest Sanskrit words borrowed into Sinitic, already in BC times: gorocanā गोरोचना ("bright yellow orpiment prepared from the bile of cattle; yellow patch for the head of a cow; bezoar").
So what's up with the "recycled beaoar' in the Hong Kong sign pictured above?
zhuānyíng niúhuáng mǎimài
專營牛黃買賣
"Specializing in bezoar trading" OR "Specializing in the buying and selling of bezoar"
Not so mysterious after all, if you can read Chinese and know what "cow yellow" is.
Selected readings
- "Bezoar" (8/2/21)
- "From Basilisks to Bezoars: The Surprising History of Harry Potter's Magical World", The New York Academy of Medicine
Martin Schwartz said,
November 29, 2024 @ 10:23 pm
As I commented on the Aug. 2, 2021 LL "Bezoar", the first element of the Iranian word is not from 'protect', but represents an ld Iranian "vrddhi" (inceased-vowel)variant *pāti- [paralleled in other words] of the Old Iranian prefix pati- 'counter to, against', thus 'that which is against venom'. By pure coincidence, and this confused non-Iranist etymologists, there was an Old Iranian word pāta- 'protectED (by)' from a root pā 'tp protect, keep', but it would not mean 'protecting against'
as first member of a compound.
bks said,
November 30, 2024 @ 7:17 am
I get the bezoar, but what's up with "recycled"? Did they run it through the cow a second time?
Victor Mair said,
November 30, 2024 @ 1:18 pm
From Kendra Dale, a certified TCM physician:
That was a fun one. How they got recycling for 買賣, is a funny jump.
I think Niu huang most widely used are gallstones of cattle or ox. As far as I know, medically, the hairball bezoar is not used as medicine. Ox bile is a common additive to digestive enzymes in modern supplements, and helps those who have weak gallbladder function and can't digest fats well.