Precious Stones.
Marvellous virtues were attributed by the ancients to the precious stones known to them, but rather perhaps in their character of amulets than as medicines. One of the so-called hymns of Orpheus, composed probably about 500 B.C., is “On Stones,” and describes the properties of many of these highly esteemed minerals. Four lines (taken from a translation in the Rev. C. W. King’s “Natural History of Precious Stones”) will serve as a sample:—
With its complexion of a lovely boy
The opal fills the hearts of gods with joy;
Whilst by the mild effulgence of its light
Its healing power restores the fading sight.
Coral, according to the same authority, acquired its special properties from Minerva. This substance was much valued by the Romans, who attached pieces of it by ribbons to their children’s necks, in the belief that it would protect them against the designs of sorcerers; and Paracelsus adopted the same view, recommending necklaces of coral to be worn as a preventive of epilepsy, “but such impostures,” says Quincy (1724), “are now deservedly laughed out of the world.” Some old writers insisted that coral worn on the person changed colour, becoming dull and pale when the wearer’s health failed.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries coral and pearls were considerably used in medicine in the form of magisteries, tinctures, syrups, and arcana. Lemery says coral was given to infants in their mothers’ milk as soon as they were born (he does not explain how) to prevent epilepsy, and he names a multitude of other disorders for which it was good. Boyle, too, in his “Collection of Remedies,” recommends it in drachm doses to “sweeten the blood and cure acidity.” The largest and reddest obtainable was to be chosen.
Pearls were used in medicine until the eighteenth century, when it began to be suspected that chalk had the same effect. The tiniest pearls, known as pearl seeds, ground to a fine powder, were prescribed as an absorbent, antacid, and cordial. This powder was also used, says Pomet, “by ladies of quality to give a lustre and beauty to the face.” It was superseded before long by Lemery’s magistery of bismuth, which, however, retained the name of pearl white. Pomet further states that a magistery of pearl was made (apparently by quacks) by combining the ground pearl with acids; an arcanum, spirits, flowers, and tinctures were also prepared and credited with marvellous virtues, “to pick fools’ pockets.”
Pearls, writes Jean de Renou (1607), “are greatly cordial and rejoice the heart. The alchemists consequently make a liquor of pearls, which they pretend is a marvellous cure for many maladies. More often than not, however, their pretended liquor is nothing but smoke, vanity, and quackery. I knew a barber in this city of Paris who was sent for by a patient to apply two leeches, and who had the impudence to demand six crowns of gold for his service. He declared that he had fed those leeches for an entire month on the liquor of pearls.”
It is on record that Pope Clement VII took 40,000 ducats’ worth of pearls and other precious stones with unicorn’s horn within fourteen days. (See Mrs. Henry Cust’s “Gentlemen Errant.”)
Emeralds had a great reputation, especially on account of their moral attributes. They were cold in an extra first degree, so cold that they became emblems of chastity, and curious tales of their powers in controlling the passions were told. Moses Maimonides, a famous Jew who lived in Egypt in the twelfth century, in a treatise he wrote by command of the Caliph as a concise guide in cases of venomous bites or poisons generally, declared that emeralds were the supreme cure. They might be laid on the stomach or held in the mouth or 9 grains of the powdered stone might be taken in wine. But recognising that emeralds were not always handy when the need arose, Moses names a number of more ordinary remedies.
Confection of Hyacinth was a noted compound formulated in all the old pharmacopœias, and regarded as a sovereign cordial, fortifying the heart, the stomach, and the brain; resisting the corruption of the humours and the malignity of the air; and serving for many other medicinal purposes. The original formula ordered besides hyacinths (which were probably amethysts), sapphires, emeralds, topazes, and pearls; silk; gold and silver leaves; musk, ambergris, myrrh, and camphor; sealed earth, coral, and a few vegetable drugs; all made into an electuary with syrup of carnations. A similar compound, but in powder form, was known as “Hungary Powder” and was believed to have been the most esteemed remedy in the Hungary Fever, to which some reference is made in the sketch of Glauber (Vol. I, pp. 260–264). The Emperor Ferdinand’s Plague Powder was another variation of the same compound. The formula given in Lemery’s Pharmacopœia orders about twenty vegetable drugs with bole, hartshorn, ivory, and one scruple each of sapphires, hyacinths, emeralds, rubies, and garnets, in a total bulk of about 4½ ounces. The dose was from ½ scruple to 2 scruples.
Sir William Bulleyn, a famous physician in the reign of Henry VIII, and said to have been of the same family as the Queen, Anne Boleyn, in his “Book of Simples,” which was a work of great renown in its day, gives the following recipe for Electuarium de Gemmis. “Take 2 drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre; jacinthe, corneline, emerauldes, granettes, of each an ounce; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede, of each 2 drachms; redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each 2 drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long pepper, spicknard, folium indicum, saffron cardamon, of each one drachm; troch diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each 1½ drachm; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; musk, half a drachm.” The electuary was to be made with “honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained, in equall parts, as much as will suffice.” What that may mean I do not know. The medicine, it was said, would heal cold, disease of the brain, heart, and stomach, and Bulleyn adds, “Kings and noble men have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell well, and ingendreth to the face good colour.”
There was a theory that the engraving of a design or a monogram on a gem increased its medicinal virtues. Galen doubts this, however. He states that the jasper benefits the chest and the mouth of the stomach if laid thereupon, and for complaints of these parts he recommends a necklace of jaspers hung round the neck and reaching down to the affected part. That he knew would do good. But some recommended that a serpent should be engraved on the stones, and Galen had tried this, but could not discover that the engraved stones were any better than the plain ones (Simp. Med., ix).
The idea did not die, however. Mr. King quotes the opinion of Camillo Lionhardo, physician to Cæsar Borgia, to the effect that if precious stones were engraved by a skilful person under a particular influence, that influence would be transmitted to the stone; and if the figure engraved corresponded with the virtue of the stone itself or its natural quality, the virtue of the figure and of the stone would be doubled.
Jerome Cardan and other mystic writers of the sixteenth century gave great prominence to precious stones as remedies; and Culpepper after quoting from several of them intimates that he expects some of his readers may consider the accounts given incredible. They declared that the diamond rendered men fearless, that the ruby took away idle and foolish fancies, that the emerald resisted lust, that the amethyst kept men from drunkenness and too much sleep, and so on. Culpepper’s reply to prospective sceptics is that he has named his authorities, and that he knows nothing to the contrary why it may not be as possible for these stones to have the effects attributed to them as for the sound of a trumpet to incite a man to valour, or a fiddle to dancing. Moreover, said Garcius, if the stones applied externally were so efficacious, how much more so would they be if taken internally.