CATALOGUE OF GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES. 157 



The character of the circles formed announced whether the presiding 

 demon was favorable or not. If favorable, the information desired 

 was pictured on the surface of the bowl. 



Prior to the seventeenth century the beryl was in some repute as a 

 curative. Mixed with an equal weight of silver, its powder, taken 

 internally, was thought to cure leprosy. Water in which the stone 

 had stood was good for the eyes, and, taken internally, it dispelled 

 flatulency and cured indisposition of the liver. 



Nicols, in the "Arcula Gemmea," published in 1653, said: 



Wurtzung, in his general practice, saith that the beryll is used in all distempers 

 of the heart. But take this caution by the way: Beware of the use of gemms (unless 

 you are sure they be true) in physick, by reason they are so frequently adulterated. 



Bloodstone. — Symbolical of wisdom, firmness, and courage. 



Used with the proper incantations, its owner was enabled to foretell 

 the future, and if rubbed with the juice of the heliotrope, it rendered 

 its wearer invisible. The stone brought safety and long life to its 

 possessor, stopped the flow of blood, and was an antidote for poisons. 

 (Camillus Leonardus, Speculum Lapidum. 1502.) 



Albertus Magnus taught that it cured dyspepsia, strengthened the 

 stomach, and, if " washed according to medicinal art," was a styptic. 

 Mixed with honey or the white of an egg, its powder was held by him 

 to be an excellent remedy for hard tumors, while its dust would cure 

 proud flesh and running sores. 



Pliny and Leonardus mention that if placed in a basin of water con- 

 taining the juice of the heliotrope and set in the sun, the water will 

 appear red and the sun bloody. After a time the water will appar- 

 ently boil and overflow the basin. Taken out of the water, the sun 

 and solar eclipses could then be viewed in the water as in a mirror. 



In a " Booke of the Thinges that are brought from the West Indies," 

 published in 1574, the statement is made: 



They doo bring from the New Spain a stone of great virtue, called the stone of 

 the blood. The Bloodstone is a kind of jasper of divers colours, somewhat dark, full 

 of sprinkles like to blood, being of colour red, of the which stones the Indians dooth 

 make certayne Hartes, both great and small. The use thereof both there and here is 

 for all fluxe of bloode, and of wounds. The stone must be wet in cold water, and 

 the sick man must take him in his right hand and from time to time wet him in cold 

 water. And as touching the Indians, they have it for certayne that touching the 

 same stone in some part where the blood runneth, that it doth restrain. 



The bishop of Rennes, in the eleventh century, writing on the 

 talismanic efficacy of stones, asserts that the bloodstone endows its 

 bearer with the gift of prophecy and renders him proof against poison. 



During the Middle Ages the belief was prevalent in Europe that the 

 stone had its origin in a dark-green jasper which happened to lie at 

 the foot of the cross at the time of the crucifixion, and upon which the 

 blood of Christ fell, hence the red spots. 



