We live in an age of medical wonder, on the cutting edge of technology that allows for quick and easy cures for many maladies. A simple trip to Walgreens can even get you an elixir for the common cold. Even serious issues, such as afflictions of the heart, are fixable nowadays. Nevertheless, many of us still employ home remedies that have been passed down through the generations. Some of these have survived the test of years, and some have been totally lost in the ether of time, and would be completely foreign to anyone living in the 21st century. One of these long-lost cure-alls is the mad stone.
The venerable Encyclopedia Americana stated that these “stones” were calcifications of a “vegetable substance”, while a local source expertly stated that mad stones could only be found in the stomach of a certain deer that lived high in the Swiss Alps, these being formed by the animals licking rocks that ultimately cause the stone to form. They ranged in size, but were generally known to be rather small; for example, the famed Sauter mad stone of Crete was described as being “an oblong, black, smooth pebble about an inch and half long by one inch wide.” Regardless of their size and exact origin, what made mad stones so treasured was the belief that they had special healing powers. According to tradition, a mad stone properly applied to the bite of a wild dog or any other animal, would adhere to the wound and draw out the toxins that cause rabies.
Due to these healing qualities, a mad stone would be jealously guarded by its owner. They were as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth, and those afflicted with the bite of a wild animal were known to travel for miles to seek one. As we modern Mokenians look back over the annals of our community’s past, it stands upon the record of the years that the village has been home to at least two mad stones.
In the spring of 1896, the Joliet Republican took an interest in elderly Mokena resident Christian Schatley and what it termed “one of the largest mad stones in the country.” The paper recorded that Schatley had found it in the stomach of a deer that he had bagged a few years previous in New Lenox, although what possessed him to dissect the stomach in the first place was not noted. While the stone had up to that point never been applied to a dog bite, the paper was quick to note that “its powers have in a measure been tested on other wounds.” Alas, an abundance of details on this mad stone haven’t survived the ebb and flow of time.
In contrast, a little more is known about the Bechstein mad stone. W.H. Bechstein earned his place in Mokena’s history by being the proprietor of the village grain elevator for many years in the early 20th century. He inherited a priceless mad stone from his maternal grandfather, William Jacob, a Hessian-born Front Street saloonkeeper. Perhaps seeing it as an investment opportunity, Jacob bought the stone for $50 from local auctioneer Charles Moriarty around 1876, after it had been shown off in his barroom. In his heyday, Jacob was known to state that he wouldn’t let go of the stone for a cent less than $500, or about $12,000 in today’s money. As of 1911, the mad stone hadn’t been used in Mokena, but before it came to our village, while in the possession of a German shoemaker in Tinley Park, it was used effectively on area resident Jacob Stellwagen, after he was attacked by a ferocious dog back in February 1876.
The ultimate fate of the Bechstein mad stone has been lost to time. This author would like to think it still exists, its significance totally forgotten, but still containing some curative juice. With its value in the days of yore in mind, it’s enough to make one wonder how much Mr. Bechstein’s descendants could get for it on eBay.
