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THE EMERALD. 137
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the
week for any business which he particularly wanted to prosper. Palmists
tell us that the Mount of Venus is situated about the ball of the thumb
; and that persons who have this ball well developed find Friday to be
for them the luckiest day of the week.
In the Schools of Salerne, 1621,
it was ordered: " Use evther a Chalcedouium, or a sweet Pommander, or
some like Precious Stone to be worre in a Ring on the little finger of
the left hand ; have in your rings, eyther a Smaragd (Emerald), a
Sapphire, or a Draconites (Dragon-Stone), which you shall beare for an
ornament ; hold sometime in your mouth eyther a Hyacinth, or a,
Crystal], or a Granat, or pure Gold, or Silver, (or else sometimes pure
Sugar-Candy). For, Aristotle doth affirm, and so doth Albertus Magnus,
that a Smaragd worne about the uecke, is good" against the Falling
Sickness ; for surely the vertue of an Herbe is great, but much more
the vertue of a Precious Stone, which is very likely that they are
endued with occult, and hidden vertues." (The Dragon-Stone here
advised— the Draconius of Albertus Magnus, 1230—was taken from the head
of a Dragon as he lay panting ; the virtue of the Precious Stone being
lost if it remained for any time in the head after the death of the
dragon. It was reputed to absorb all poisons, especially that of
serpents. It renders its possessor bold, and invincible. Philos-tratus {Be Vita ApoUonii) tells
how these wonderful •dragons were captured—" by the exhibition of
golden letters, and a scarlet robe ; for, these monsters had an ■eye
for rich colouring, as our modern ladies have for a scarlet coat.")
To the Chalcedonyx—as here commended—it was said that Milo, of Crotona, was indebted for the increase
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