ON THERAPEUTIC USES OP STONES 389
The
proper method of applying a sapphire to cure plague boils is given at
some length by Von Helmont. A gem of a fine, deep color was to be
selected and rubbed gently and slowly around the pestilential tumor.
During and immediately after this operation, the patient would feel but
little alleviation; but a good while after the removal of the stone,
favorable symptoms would appear, provided the malady were not too far
advanced. This Von Helmont attributes to a magnetic force in the
sapphire by means of which the absent gem continued to extract "the
pestilential virulency and contagious poyson from the infected part."42
The
use of a topaz to cure dimness of vision is strongly recommended by St.
Hildegard. To attain the desired end the stone was to be placed in wine
and left there for three days and three nights. When retiring to sleep,
the patient should rub his eyes with the moistened topaz, so that this
moisture lightly touched the eyeball. After the stone had been removed,
the wine could be used for five days.43
A
Roman physician of the fifteenth century was reputed to have wrought
many wonderful cures of those stricken by the plague, through touching
the plague sores with a topaz which had belonged to two popes, Clement
VI and Gregory II. The fact that this particular topaz had been in the
hands of two supreme pontiffs must have added much to the faith reposed
in the curative powers
" " A
Ternary of Paradoxes, written originally by Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont and
translated, illustrated, and amplieated by Walter Charle-ton," London,
1650, p. 17.
" S. Hildegardae, "Opera omnia," in Pat. Lat. ed. by J. P. Migne, vol. excvii, Parisiis, 1855, col. 1255.
