George Gipson (Locally Famous) CARNEY

Inventor of the Ozark Madstone
November 6, 1857 - January 6, 1943


The madstone treatment for rabies was once popular in many parts of the United States and is still well known in the Ozarks. The madstones I have seen are porous and resemble some sort of volcanic ash, but the natives all claim that they were taken from the entrails of deer. These stones are rare now, and they are handed down from father to son, never sold. No charge is made for using the stone although the patient may make the owner a present if he likes. I have never seen the madstone in actual use, but they tell me that if the dog was really mad the stone sticks fast to the wound and draws the poison out. After a while the stone falls off, and is placed in a vessel of warm milk, which immediately turns green. The stone is then applied to the wound again, and so on until it no longer imparts a green color to the fresh milk. Virtually every old-time hillman believes that if the madstone is applied soon enough and sticks properly, the patient will never suffer from rabies, even if the dog was mad.


J. J. Hibler, veteran real estate dealer in Springfield, Missouri, kept a madstone in his office for many years; it was famous in the nineties, and people came from all over southwest Missouri to use it. Homer Davis, of Monett, Missouri, used to have a madstone, shaped like a halfmoon. The old·timers say that it was always dipped in hot milk before applying it to a wound. It was a porous stone, said to have been taken from the stomach of an albino deer more than seventy-five years ago.
Many old people allege that the madstone in a deer is always found in the stomach, while others place it in the intestines or the bladder, or in the udder of a doe, or even between the windpipe and the lights. Uncle Lum Booth, of Taney, County, Missouri, who had given the matter considerable thought, said that so long as the deer was white it made ·no difference in what part of the body the stone appeared.

Even in Kansas City. Missouri, madstones were still in use as late as 1931, according to the Kansas City Journal-Post, August 4, 1935. A stone belonging to Mr. Noel E. Jackson, aged pioneer, is said to have been brought from Scotland in the early days by a man named Bates. It looks like whitish limestone, about an inch and a half long, with a sort of honeycomb structure; it has the appearance of a fossil, though Mr. Jackson thinks it came from the stomach of a deer. He says he has seen this stone used hundreds of times and has never known it to fail. He has never charged a cent for the use of it. In 1931, Mr. S.T. Dailey of Strasburg, Missouri, was bitten by a rabid mule. The stone adhered to Dailey's wound for nine hours. Jackson says the stone is often applied to the same patient several times. In the case of a little girl from Independence, Missouri, it stuck for fifty -five minutes and then fell off. Jackson cleaned the thing in sweet milk, dried it carefully, and two days later he applied it again. This second time the stone adhered for thirty-five minutes. Several days later it was tried again, but failed to stick at all, which the neighbors regarded as evidence that the child was safe from rabies.

Source: From Ozark Superstition by Vance Randolph
https://www.barrycomuseum.org/pages/Mad%20Stone.html

Cassville Republican
Date Oct 10, 1901
Headline Purdy News
Mrs. Tom Carlin and little daughter were bitten by a mad dog Saturday, Sept 28. They at once went to Mr. Kearney's [Carney] on Flat Creek to apply the mad stone which he has. The stone would not adhere to the wound on the little girl; but in the case of Mrs. Carlin it adhered; ten consecutive times, in the first instance for a period of an hour and half.
Source State Historical Society of MO Microfilm

Ozark Madstone. The madstone was the backwoods cure for rabies and other poisonous bites. When the porous stone was stuck to the afflicted area after being soaked in warm milk, it was supposed to suck the disease or poison out.

Lore says that the original madstones came from the gall bladders of albino deer. They become family heirlooms handed down from one generation to the next, but always lent out to neighbors and those in need.

Exerpt...In the early 1900s, the Carneys living near Flat Creek in Barry County began marketing a reproduction of the madstone made from local stone. An advertisement in 1909 claimed “The Carney Madstone or Poison Extractor” will cure hydrophobia, snake bite, ivy poisoning, wounds caused by rusty nails and blood poisoning caused by handling diseased animals and only cost you $10...
Source: Jeremiah Buntin: Old-time medicine
https://www.cassville-democrat.com/2023/05/24/old-time-medicine/

Contributed on 10/20/23

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Record #: 832974

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