CATALOGUE OF GEMS AND PEECIOUS STONES. 155 



Ben Jonson, in the Alchymist, speaking of the medicinal properties 

 of gems, wrote : 



My meat shall come in Indian shells, dishes of agate set in gold, and studded with 

 emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and ruhies. The tongues of carps, dormice, and 

 camel's heels hoiled in the spirit of Sol, and dissolv'd pearl, apicus diet 'gainst the 

 epilepsy. And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, headed with diamond 

 and carbuncle. 



Dioscorides, in his Materia Medica, recommends the use of the agate 

 as a preventive of contagion. 



Alabaster. — According to Leonardus it is the best for vessels to 

 hold unguents, which are preserved in them without spoiling. Dios- 

 corides and many other doctors account it good in physics. He who 

 carries it will prove victorious in suits at law. 



Amber. — Supposed to be "generated out of the urine of the lynx, 

 and is hardened by time; that voided by the male, brown; by the 

 female, saffron, inclining to a darkness." Amber assuaged pain in 

 the stomach, cured jaundice, flux, and king's evil. 



It naturally restrains the flux of the belly; is'an efficacious remedy for all dis- 

 orders in the throat (a belief still prevalent). It is good against poison. If laid on 

 the breast of a wife when she is asleep, it makes her confess all her evil deeds. Being 

 taken inwardly it provokes urine, brings down the menses, and facilitated a birth. 

 It fastens teeth that are loosen 'd, and by the smoke of it poisonous insects are driven 

 away. (Camillus Leonardus, Speculum Lapidum. 1502.) 



When buried in a moist soil it was supposed to generate a fungus, 

 which was administered to those troubled with the gravel. It cured 

 fits, dysentery, scrofula, and jaundice. Used as an amulet it charmed 

 away toothache, asthma, croup, and diseases of the throat; supposed 

 to be efficacious as a curative and prophylactic if rubbed on the parts 

 or taken internally, after dissolving in white wine. (Dissertatio med- 

 ica de Succino, 1682.) These beliefs are still current. 



Thomas Nicols writes that the — • 



white odoriferous amber is esteemed the best for physic use, and thought to be of 

 great power and force against many diseases, as against the vertigo and asthmatic par- 

 oxysmes, against catharres and arthriticall pains, against diseases of the stomach, and 

 to free it from sluffings and putrefactions, and against diseases of the heart, against 

 plagues, venoms, and contagions. It is used either in powder, or in oil, or in troches, 

 either in distempers of men or of women, either married or unmarried, either with 

 child or without, or in the distempers of children. (Arcula Gemmea, 1653.) 



Olaus Worm, of Copenhagen, writing in 1640, says that amber was 

 received as a panacea; a sovereign remedy for toothache, asthma, and 

 dropsy. 



In the work "De Proprietatibus Rerum," by Bartholomaeus Glan- 

 villa, amber is reported to possess the property of driving away adders 

 and of being contrary to friends. 



The Shah of Persia is said to wear an amulet of amber reported to 

 have fallen from heaven, and which has the property of rendering him 

 invulnerable. 



