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HE medicinal use of precious stones may be traced 
. back to very ancient times. It has been conjectured that their
employment for such purposes was introduced to Europe from India,
whence many of the stones were derived. Nevertheless, the earliest
evidence we have rather points to Egypt as the source, and, indeed, it
appears that in early Egyptian times the chemical constituents of the
stones were much more rationally considered than at a later period in
Europe. The Ebers Papyrus, for instance, recommends the use of certain
astringent substances, such as lapis-lazuli, as ingredients of
eye-salves, and hematite, an iron oxide, was used for checking
hemorrhages and for reducing inflammations. Little by little, however,
superstition associated certain special virtues with the color and
quality of precious stones, and their virtues were thought to be
greatly enhanced by engraving on them the image of some god, or of some
object symbolizing certain of the activities of nature. Later still,
the science of astrology, most highly developed in Assyria and
Babylonia, was brought into combination with the various superstitions
above indicated, so that the image was believed to have much greater
efficacy if the engraving were executed when the sun was in a certain
constellation or when the moon or some^one of the planets was in the
ascendant at the time.
If we exclude certain fragmentary notices in Egyp-
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