378 CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
jaundice,
pleurisy, and even leprosy. As to the use of diamonds of good quality,
very explicit directions are given. On some day regarded as auspicious
for the operation, the stone was to be dipped in the juice of the kantakara (Solanum jaquiri) and
subjected for a whole night to the heat of a fire made by dried pieces
of the dung of a cow or of a buffalo. In the morning it was to be
immersed in cow's urine and again subjected to fire. These processes
were to be repeated for seven days, at the end of which term the
diamond could be regarded as purified. After this the stone was to be
buried in a paste of certain leguminous seeds mixed with asafcetida and
rock salt. Herein it was to be heated twenty-one successive times,
when it would be reduced to ashes. If these ashes were then dissolved
in some liquid, the potion would ' ' conduce to longevity, general
development of the body, strength, energy, beauty of complexion, and
happiness," giving an adamantine strength to the limbs.12
An
Austrian nobleman, who for a long time had not been able to sleep
without having terrible dreams, was immediately cured by wearing a
small diamond set in gold on his arm, so that the stone came in contact
with his skin.13
The
fact that in this case, as in many others, the stone was required to
touch the skin, proves that the effect supposed to be produced was not
altogether magical, but in the nature of a physical emanation from the
stone to the body of the wearer.
We are told that when Pope Clement VII was seized by his last illness, in 1534, his physicians resorted to
"Surindro Mohun Tagore, "Mani Mala," Pt. I, Calcutta, 1879, pp. 137, 139, 141.
" Andrea Spigello, " De semitert." ; cited in Gimma, " Della Storia naturale delle gemme," Napoli, 1730, vol. i, p. 208.
