Onyx,
the Sardonyx, and the Bloodstone) for personal wear, of a continued
sort, and for other such outward uses next the skin as may be found
feasible, convenient, and pleasant. In these cases also a variation of
the jewelry chosen for wear may be sometimes made to the compound gems
(of both silica, and alumina), to wit,—the true Emerald, and the true
Topaz.
And
we would by no means overlook the additional virtues, and properties
ascribed of old, to, or assumed later on for, the Precious Stones as
considered by us, whether traditionally, or speculatively, in the body
of this our book. The probabilities may be fairly taken for granted
that grounds, more or less valid, and trustworthy, warrant a belief in
the premises adduced, as well as in the practices empirically
commended. Quoting again Mr. Boyle's Experimental Philosofhie (1675),
he bids us " not prsetermit among the proofs of the efficacy of
appended remedies those memorable examples which are deliver'd by the
judicious Boetius de Boot, 1630, concerning the virtues of that sort of
remedies."
"
The employment of Precious Stones for medicinal purposes," wrote De
Boot, " originated from an Arabian belief which held that they are the
mystic residence of spirits." They were first worn as amulets; then
gradually came to be given internally.
A
certain stone (of Laurentian gneiss) greenish-yellow of hue, is found
in the Island of Iona, one of the Hebrides, on the Western Coast of
Scotland, where Columba founded his first monastery, 563 a.d. To amulets
made from this kind of stone is attributed, even now, a power of
protecting their wearers from all danger by drowning. Small crosses,
finger-rings,
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