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Ovum Anguinum, Druid's Bead

Ovum Anguinum, Druid's Bead Page of 384 Ovum Anguinum, Druid's Bead Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
250                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
bathes it, and the water thus used is highly valued for its sin-repelling properties. Colebrook again describes the stone as round and black, perforated with spiral holes a.s if by worms, done by Vishnu's own fingor, the forms and number of which typify the god under different characters. The substance is silicious. They arc found in the Gandaci river in Nepal. The agreement in colour, weight, and spiral arrangement of the " deep-furrowed lines," proves the Orites and this stone to have been identical. Observe, it is given to Helenus by Apollo, who answers to the Hindoo Crishna, the most splendid of Vishnu's avatars. The Magi may easily have got the stone from the Brahmins along with so inany other particulars of their religion.
The Goa-stone was in the 16th and 17th centuries as much in repute as the Bezoar, and for its similar virtues. It got the name from being brought by the Portuguese from their East Indian colony. It is of the shape and size of a duck's egg, has a greyish metallic lustre, and, though hard, is friable. The mode of employing it was to take a minute dose of the powder scraped from it in one's drink every morning, when wonderful results were promised in the preservation of the health. The substance is evidently a metallic compound, and somewhat resembles calomel in the mass. So precious was it esteemed that the great usually carried it about with them inclosed in a case of gold filigree.
The Memphitic kind of the marble Ophites, which approached in fineness of quality to a precious stone (geminantis naturae), was employed by surgeons as an anaesthetic agent. Powdered and mixed with vinegar, the paste was smeared over the parts that had to be cauterised or amputated. " By this application the body loses all pain, becoming as it were benumbed " (Plin. xxxvi. 1 i ). An attempt has lately been made to revive the use of local anaesthetics in modern surgery.
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