The Conway Springs Madstone

It is recalled that Dr. William Monnet had a madstone and people of that time felt much safer in this wild new country with a madstone available. Mrs. J.K. Van Meter remember seeing the stone used. She was a girlhood chum of Dr. Monnet’s daughter, and these two young girls saw a demonstration they never forgot.

The patient was suffering from a snake bits. The doctor brought out the madstone, a round flattened stone that was possibly the size of the doctor’s palm. It had a slightly rough texture and was grayish green in color. The stone was put in a pan of warm milk and then applied to the wound. When it was judged to have drawn out some of the venom, the stone was put back in the milk and the process repeated a number of times. Each time the milk became greener.

Never did anyone who family had this treatment not believe the treatment worked.

– Conway Springs Memories of the First One-Hundred Years by the Conway Springs Centennial Committee