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 It was superseded before long by Lemery’s magistery of bismuth, which, however, retained the name of pearl white.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.”