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376 CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
their
beautiful colors, but also possessed a fragrant odor, was one of the
many fanciful ideas regarding them. If we could believe the following
circumstantial account, this was once experimentally proved:8
When
precious stones are to be used in medicine, they must be pulverized
until they are reduced to a powder so fine that it will not grate under
the teeth, or, in the words of Galen, this powder must be as impalpable
" as that which is blown into the eyes." Since this trituration is not
usually operated with sufficient care by the apothecaries, I begged a
medical student, who was lodging with me, to pass an entire month in
grinding some of these stones. I gave him emeralds, jacinths,
sapphires, rubies, and pearls, an ounce of each kind. As these stones
were rough and whole, he first crushed them a little in a well-polished
iron mortar, using a pestle of the same metal; afterward he employed a
pestle and mortar of glass, devoting several hours each day to this
work. At the end of about three weeks, his room, which was rather
large, became redolent with a perfume, agreeable both from its variety
and sweetness. This odor, which much resembled that of March violets,
lingered in the room for more than three days. There was nothing in the
room to produce it, so that it certainly proceeded from the powder of
precious stones.
Of
the many medicinal virtues attributed to the diamond, one of the most
noteworthy is that of an antidote for poisons. Strangely enough, the
belief in its efficacy in this respect was coupled with the idea that
the stone in itself was a deadly poison. The origin of this latter
fancy must be sought in the tradition that the place wherein the
diamonds were generated—"in the land where it is six months day and six
months night"—was guarded by venomous creatures who, in passing over
the stones, were wounded by the sharp points of the crystals,
8 Olaus Borrichius, in the Collection Académique, Paris, 1757, tome iv, p. 338.
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