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

Emerald

The emerald was employed as an antidote for poisons and for poisoned wounds, as well as against demoniacal possession.[479] If worn on the neck it was said to cure the “semitertian” fever and epilepsy.[480] The use of the emerald to rest and relieve the eye is the only remedial use of a precious stone mentioned by Theophrastus in his treatise on gems, written in the third century B.C. Alluding to its powers as an antidote for poisons, Rueus asserts[481] that if the weight of eighty barley-corns of its powder were given to one dying from the effects of poison, the dose would save his life. The Arabs prized emeralds highly for this purpose, and Abenzoar states that, having once taken a poisonous herb, he placed an emerald in his mouth and applied another to his stomach, whereupon he was entirely cured.[482]

A certain cure for dysentery also was to wear an emerald suspended so that it touched the abdomen and to place another emerald in the mouth. Michaele Paschali, a learned Spanish physician of the sixteenth century, declared that he had effected a cure of the disease by means of the emerald in the case of Juan de Mendoza, a Spanish grandee, and Wolfgang Gabelchover, of Calw, in Würtemberg, writing in 1603, asserts that he had often tested the virtues of the emerald in cases of dysentery and with invariable success.[483]

It speaks not a little for the beauty of the emerald that so good a judge of precious stones as Pliny should have pronounced this gem to be the only one that delighted the eye without fatiguing it, adding that when the vision was wearied by gazing intently at other objects, it gained renewed strength by viewing an emerald. So general in the early centuries of our era was the persuasion that the pure green hue of emeralds aided the eyesight, that gem engravers are said to have kept some of them on their work-tables, so as to be able to look at the stones from time to time and thus relieve the eye-strain caused by close application to their delicate task.[484]

Psellus says that a cataplasm made of emeralds was of help to those suffering from leprosy; he adds that if pulverized and taken in water they would check hemorrhages.[485] They were especially commended for use as amulets to be hung on the necks of children, as they were believed to ward off and prevent epilepsy. If, however, the violence of the disease was such that it could not be overcome by the stone, the latter would break.[486] Hermes Trismegistus says the emerald cures ophthalmia and hemorrhages. The great Hermes must have had a special preference for this stone, since his treatise on chemistry (peri chemeias) is said to have been found inscribed on an emerald.[487]

By the Hindu physicians of the thirteenth century the emerald was considered to be a good laxative. It cured dysentery, diminished the secretion of bile, and stimulated the appetite. In short, it promoted bodily health and destroyed demoniacal influences. In the curious phrase of the school the emerald was “cold and sweet.”[488]

Teifashi (1242 A.D.) believed that the emerald was a cure for hæmoptysis and for dysentery if it were worn over the liver of the person affected; to cure gastric troubles, the stone was to be laid upon the stomach. Furthermore, the wearer was protected from the attacks of venomous creatures, and evil spirits were driven from the place where emeralds were kept.[489] The direction to place the stone on the affected part, a recommendation often met with in the treatises on the therapeutic use of ornamental stones, shows that these were believed to send forth emanations of subtle power. Probably enough, the brilliant play of reflected light which proceeds from many of these gems suggested the idea that they radiated a certain curative energy. This theory need not surprise us, for, although it is altogether fanciful in the case of the diamond, ruby, emerald, etc., the newly discovered substance, radium, really possesses the active properties ascribed by old writers to precious stones.

Jade

A stone the therapeutic quality of which was specialized is the jade or nephrite. Strange to say, although there are very few places where this mineral can now be obtained,—the chief sources of supply being the province of Khotan in Turkistan and New Zealand,—in prehistoric times the stone must have been found in many different localities, since axe-heads and other artefacts of jade have been discovered in many lands both of the old and new world.

When the Spaniards discovered and explored the southern part of the American continent, they came across numerous native ornaments and amulets made of jade (jadeite) and brought many of these with them to Europe. The name jade is derived from the Spanish designation, piedra de hijada, meaning literally “stone of the flank,” which is said to have been bestowed on the stone because the Indians used it for all diseases of the kidneys. The name nephrite owes its origin to the same idea. In ancient times jade appears to have been looked upon as a great aid in parturition, and many ingenious conjectures have been advanced as to the connection between this belief and the form of some of the prehistoric objects made of this material. Whether the Spaniards really learned from the Indians that the stone was especially adapted to cure renal diseases, or whether they only suggested this special and peculiar virtue in order to give an enhanced value to their jade ornaments, is a question not easily answered.