Rock-crystal
Medical men in Rome, in the first century, attested that no better cautery for the human body could be used than a crystal ball acted upon by the sun’s rays,[[310]] and this use of the material seems to have been very general at that time.
In his commentary on Andrea Bacci’s gem-treatise, Wolfgang Gabelchover, the German translator, says that a German name of rock-crystal in his time, the early sixteenth century, was Schwindelstein (“vertigo-stone”), because it was believed to preserve the wearer from attacks of dizziness. Other remedial or physical effects of rock-crystal are also noted. Taken as a powder in dry wine, it was a cure for dysentery, and the physician, Christopher Barzizius, taught that if its powder were mixed with honey and administered to mothers, they would be the better able to nurse their offspring.[[311]]
The following lines by Robert Wilson (d. 1600), a popular sixteenth-century comedy writer, credit amber and rock-crystal with qualities not commonly ascribed to them, although the fancied growth of rock-crystal from a piece of ice probably explains its supposed styptic virtue:[[312]]
Lucre: And if they demand wherefore your
wares and merchandise agree,
You must say, jet will take up a straw;
amber will make one fat;
Coral will look pale when you be sick,
and crystal stanch blood.
That a remedial tincture of rock-crystal could be made was firmly believed by the Danish chemist, Ole Borch (Olaus Borrichius, 1626–1690), and in his chemical lectures he gives the following directions as to the processes to be employed. A rock-crystal was to be heated to a high temperature and then cast, while still warm, into cold water; it would thereupon break up into small fragments. By heating these particles together with tartaric salts, the whole mass would be reduced to a liquid solution. Half of the quantity, after cooling off, was to be put into a distilling glass with the best “spirit of wine” and was to be digested in a bath of lukewarm water. It would then be seen that the solution became red. This process is repeated several times, and finally the tincture is concentrated by distilling off the spirit of wine, leaving the pure rock-crystal tincture. Its remedial quality is stated to have been applicable to dropsy, scrofula, or hypochondriac melancholia, if it were taken in doses up to forty drops in a proper medium.[[313]]
ANCIENT PERSIAN RELIC KNOWN AS THE “CUP OF CHOSROES”
The engraved rock-crystal medallion in the centre depicts Khusrau II, Parwiz (A. D. 591–628), in the peculiar and characteristic garb of the Sassanian monarchs. The strange wing-like adornments rising from each shoulder, and the moon crescent and sun-disk above the head, are especially noteworthy. In the Royal Museum, Bucharest, Roumania.
To make the magisterium of rock-crystal, a pound of the substance was to be heated to a high temperature and then dipped into spirits of vitriol. After this operation had been repeated ten times, the rock-crystal was to be ground, on a marble slab, to a very fine powder, which was a sure remedy for gout and for calculi formed in any of the bodily organs. The spirits of vitriol in which the rock-crystal had been dipped was sometimes filtered through blotting-paper and sold as crystal spirits of vitriol; this was asserted to be a powerful diuretic, from seven to ten drops being given at a dose in a cup of meat broth.[[314]]
As late as the last half of the eighteenth century a Dr. Bourgeois recommended the use of rock-crystal, calcined and ground, as a very excellent astringent in the most obstinate cases of diarrhœa. In reporting this, Valmont de Bomare (1731–1807) adds that it would be desirable to know the nature of the acid in rock-crystal and its state of combination.[[315]] Here, as in all cases where some of the constituents of precious stones may really possess certain curative powers, a better result can be attained by using these constituents in other forms or combinations.
The wonderful therapeutic virtues of a Scotch lake named Loch-mo-naire are explained by a local legend as having arisen from certain magic crystals which had been cast into its waters. These crystals, if placed in water, rendered the liquid a potion of great curative power. They were the property of a woman who had gained by their possession a great reputation as a healer, but her success attracted the envy of a neighbor who determined to secure for himself the woman’s wonder-working stones. In pursuance of this design he came to her, feigning illness. She saw through his deception and sought safety in flight, but he pursued her and was gaining rapidly on her, when she threw the stones into the waters of the lake, crying out the Gaelic word noire, “shame,” and uttering the wish that its waters should be rendered powerful to cure the sick, all except those of the clan Gordon to which the would-be thief belonged. As the correct translation of the name of the lake is said to be not “Lake of Shame” but “Serpent Lake,” the legend appears to have no good foundation, but is perhaps as true as any of the popular tales purporting to explain the origin of the virtues of healing springs or waters.[[316]]
To many stones was attributed the power of transmitting a certain remedial virtue to water or other liquid in which they were immersed. This, as we have related, was the case with the white stone that St. Columba sent to King Brude at Inverness when the king’s druid priest Broichan was suffering from disease. A peculiarity of this stone was that if it were required in the case of a person about to die, it would disappear from view. Thus its remedial powers could never be put to test unless success were assured.[[317]]
There can be no reasonable doubt that some remarkable cures have been effected by means of relics, or by drinking the waters of a spring believed to have been pointed out by some divine vision. From a purely scientific standpoint this can be explained as the result of an extraordinary stimulation of the nerve-centres, caused by the rapt enthusiasm of religious faith. The relics, or the pure water, simply serve as an object about which this faith crystallizes, so to speak, and gains a concrete and external form, which in turn reacts upon the mind of the believer. It is a well-known fact that a great shock, or imminent peril, has sometimes suddenly restored the power of motion to those who have long been paralyzed. This view does not, however, necessarily exclude a religious interpretation of these phenomena when they are produced by religious impressions, for the divine will manifests itself by natural means, and a true understanding of the regular and normal working of these means should give us a deeper, truer, and purer faith.