Eating Dino Bones

[Adrienne Mayor <afmayor@aol.com>]

Chinese paleontologist Dong Zhiming discovers one source of  
traditional "dragon bone" medicine in China: see article below and URL.

The practice of powdering dinosaur and other large fossil bones and  
brewing a tea with special healing powers is ancient and worldwide.  
I've found examples in ancient Greece and Rome, Mexico, and among  
numerous American Indian groups:

CHINESE VILLAGERS EAT DINOSAUR BONES
Fossils Believed to be "Flying Dragon" Bones with Healing Powers
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 5, 2007

BEIJING -- Villagers in central China spent decades digging up bones  
they believed belonged to flying dragons and using them in  
traditional medicines. Turns out the bones belonged to dinosaurs, and  
now scientists are doing the digging.

Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as  
"dragon bones" at about 25 cents a pound, scientist Dong Zhiming said  
Wednesday.

The calcium-rich bones were sometimes boiled with other ingredients  
and fed to children to treat dizziness and leg cramps. Other times  
they were ground up and turned into a paste applied directly to  
fractures and other injuries, he said.

Dong was part of a team that recently excavated in Henan's Ruyang  
County a 60-foot-long plant-eating dinosaur that lived 85 million to  
100 million years ago. The find was shown to the public Tuesday.

Dong said that when the villagers found out last year the bones were  
from dinosaurs, they donated 440 pounds to him and his colleagues for  
research. Over the last two decades, the villagers had dug up an  
estimated 1 ton of bones.

"They had believed that the 'dragon bones' were from the dragons  
flying in the sky," said Dong, a professor with the Institute of  
Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy  
of Sciences.

Full story and pictures:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/04/ 
AR2007070400437.html