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ON THERAPEUTIC USES OF STONES 373
peutic powers, and thus rendering the preparation more acceptable.2
It
is related by Plutarch that when Pericles was dying of the plague, he
showed to one of his friends, who was visiting him, an amulet suspended
from his neck. This had been given to Pericles by the women of his
household, and Plutarch cites the instance as a proof that even the
strongest minds will at certain times yield to the influence of
superstition.3
There
were sceptics in ancient times who put no faith in the popular
superstitions as to the curative powers of precious stones. Eusebius
(ca. 264-ca. 349), in his oration on the Emperor Constantine the Great
(272-337), says : *
He
held that the varieties of stones so greatly admired were useless and
ineffective things. They possessed no other qualities than their
natural ones, and hence no efficacy to hold evils aloof; for what power
can such things have either to cure disease or to avert death?
Nevertheless, although he well knew this, he was in no wise opposed to
their use simply as ornaments by his subjects.
The
Middle High German didactic poem on precious stones, composed by
Volmar, or Volamar, about 1250, appears to have been written as a
rejoinder to a satirical poem, the work of a writer called the
"Strieker" (rascal). What chiefly aroused Volmar's wrath was the fact
that this irreverent personage dared to assert that a piece of
*
" The Hematic and Alchemical writings of Aureolus Philippus
Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus the Great," trans,
by Arthur Edward Waite, London, 1894, Vol. I, pp. 14, 225, Vol. II, p.
218.
"Plutarchi, "Vita?," ed. Sinteris, Lipsia;, 1884, p. 339; Pericles, 38.
4Eusebii
Pamphili, "De laudibus Constantini," cap. v; in Eusebii, "Opera Omnia,"
ed. Migne, Parisiis, 1857, cols. 1337, 1340; Patro-logiae Graecas, vol.
xx.
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