looked
upon. When the patriarch died God placed this stone in the Sun; hence
arose the Hebrew proverb, " When the Sun rises the disease will abate."
The Oriental Ruby, or Carbuncle of the ancients, gave warning by a
change in its colour if misfortune threatened the wearer, becoming much
darker in hue. When the peril, or evil was averted the stone resumed
its former brilliant tint. Wolfganogus Gabelschoverus relates the
following incident: "On the fifth day of December, 1600 after the birth
of Christ Jesus, as I was going with my beloved wife (of pious memory)
from Stutgard to Caluna, I observed by the way that a very fine Ruby
which I wore mounted in a gold ring (the which she had given me) lost
repeatedly, and each time almost comÂpletely, its splendid colour, and
that it assumed a sombre blackish hue, which blackness lasted not one
day, but several; so much so that, being greatly astonished, I drew the
ring from my finger, and put it into a casket. I also warned my wife
that some evil followed her, or me, the which I augured from the change
in the Ruby. And truly I was not deceived; for, within a few days she
was taken mortally sick. After her death the Ruby recovered its
pristine colour, and brilliancy."
Even
in the primitive times of the Roman Empire this principle of physical
effects, for good, or evil, resulting to the body through outward
instrumentalities acting immediately on its exterior, next the skin,
was recognised, and believed in. The old classic fable of Nessus, and
his shirt, is an illustration in point, When wounded to the death by an
arrow shot from across a river by Hercules, to avenge the rape of his
wife; (Dejinira), this Nessus craftily gave to Dejinira his shirt
