The Curious Lore of Precious Stones / Being a description of their sentiments and folk lore, superstitions, symbolism, mysticism, use in medicine, protection, prevention, religion, and divination. Crystal gazing, birth-stones, lucky stones and talismans, astral, zodiacal, and planetary

by George Frederick Kunz

Diamond

Of the many medicinal virtues attributed to the diamond, one of the most noteworthy is that of an antidote for poisons. Strangely enough, the belief in its efficacy in this respect was coupled with the idea that the stone in itself was a deadly poison. The origin of this latter fancy must be sought in the tradition that the place wherein the diamonds were generated—“in the land where it is six months day and six months night”—was guarded by venomous creatures who, in passing over the stones, were wounded by the sharp points of the crystals, and thus embued the stones with some of their venom.[472] The attribution of curative properties in case of poisoning arose from association of ideas. The Lapidario of Alfonso X recommends the diamond for diseases of the bladder; it adds, however, that this stone should be used only in desperate cases.

INITIALS FROM THE LAPIDARIO DE ALFONSO X (XIII CENTURY).
Codice Original (fol. 6), published in Madrid, 1881. That on the left figures “the stone found in the sea when the planet Mars rises”; that on the right, “the stone that attracts glass.” Author’s library

A larger image is available [here].

INITIALS FROM THE LAPIDARIO DE ALFONSO X.
Codice Original (fol. 4), published in Madrid, 1881. On the left, “the stone that recoils from milk”; on the right, pearl-fishers.

A larger image is available [here].

The diamond was also believed to afford protection from plague or pestilence, and a proof of its powers in this direction was found in the fact that the plague first attacked the poorer classes, sparing the rich, who could afford to adorn themselves with diamonds. Naturally, in common with other precious stones, this brilliant gem was supposed to cure many diseases. Marbodus[473] tells us that it was even a cure for insanity.

In the Babylonian Talmud we read of a marvellous precious stone belonging to Abraham. This was perhaps a diamond, or possibly a pearl; the accounts vary, and the same word is often used to designate “precious stone” and “pearl.” The following version represents it to be a diamond:[474]

R. Simeon, ben Johanan said: “A diamond was hanging on Abraham’s neck, and when a sick man looked upon it he was cured. And when Abraham passed away, the Lord sealed it in the planet of the sun.”

The Hindus believed that it was extremely dangerous to use diamonds of inferior quality for curative purposes, as they would not only fail to remedy the disease for which they were prescribed, but might cause lameness, jaundice, pleurisy, and even leprosy. As to the use of diamonds of good quality, very explicit directions are given. On some day regarded as auspicious for the operation, the stone was to be dipped in the juice of the kantakára (Solanum jaquiri) and subjected for a whole night to the heat of a fire made by dried pieces of the dung of a cow or of a buffalo. In the morning it was to be immersed in cow’s urine and again subjected to fire. These processes were to be repeated for seven days, at the end of which term the diamond could be regarded as purified. After this the stone was to be buried in a paste of certain leguminous seeds mixed with asafœtida and rock salt. Herein it was to be heated twenty-one successive times, when it would be reduced to ashes. If these ashes were then dissolved in some liquid, the potion would “conduce to longevity, general development of the body, strength, energy, beauty of complexion, and happiness,” giving an adamantine strength to the limbs.[475]

An Austrian nobleman, who for a long time had not been able to sleep without having terrible dreams, was immediately cured by wearing a small diamond set in gold on his arm, so that the stone came in contact with his skin.[476]

The fact that in this case, as in many others, the stone was required to touch the skin, proves that the effect supposed to be produced was not altogether magical, but in the nature of a physical emanation from the stone to the body of the wearer.

We are told that when Pope Clement VII was seized by his last illness, in 1534, his physicians resorted to powders composed of various precious stones. In the space of fourteen days they are asserted to have given the pope forty thousand ducats’ worth of these stones, a single dose costing as much as three thousand ducats. The most costly remedy of all was a diamond administered to him at Marseilles. Unfortunately, this lavish expenditure was of no avail; indeed, according to our modern science, the remedies might have sufficed to end the pope’s life, without the help of his disease.[477]

The old fancy that the diamond grew dark in the presence of poison is explained by the Italian physician Gonelli as caused by minute and tenuous particles which emanated from the poison, impinged upon the surface of the diamond, and, unable to penetrate its dense mass, accumulated on the surface, thus producing a superficial discoloration. The diamond, being a cold substance, may have condensed moisture from the body, and the one suffering from the poison may have emitted exudations. But this elaborate explanation of a phenomenon which never existed except in the imagination of those who related it is characteristic of Gonelli, who was always ready to elucidate in some similar way any of the marvels recounted in regard to precious stones.[478]