126 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
and specifick
Virtues that are ascribed to them; nay and (over and above) that these
Virtues are such and so eminent, that they considerably surpass those
of cheaper Simples. And I think, that in Prescriptions made for the
poorer sort of Patients, a Physician may well substitute cheaper
Ingredients in the place of these precious ones, whose Virtues are no
half so unquestionable as their Dearnesse.
Whether
the somewhat mysterious illness and death of the popes Leo IV and Paul
II could have been caused by the great quantity of pearls and precious
stones they were in the habit of wearing was a question seriously
discussed by Johann Wolff, the supposed lethal effect being attributed
to the coldness of such objects.17 Indeed, the frigidity of
precious stones was adduced by certain writers as one of the chief
reasons for their remedial use in fevers.18
Not
only to King Frederick III of Denmark himself, to whom on his death-bed
in 1670, a dose of pulverized bezoar was administered, but to his queen
and their children such remedies were given, there being record that on
September 19, 1663, a prescription· containing red coral and pearl
powder was compounded by the Court Pharmacy for the queen, while a few
years earlier the inevitable bezoar and also a tonic pearl-milk were
administered to some of the royal offspring.19
Some
interesting details as to the use of precious stone remedies for the
cure of illness appear in the manuscript notes of lectures given at the
Leyden Hospital by the seventeenth century physician, Lucas Schacht,
in 1674 and 1675.20 This shows that these remedial agents were there and at that time only used as a last resort, when the patient's con-
* Johannis Wolffii, " Curiosus amuletorum scrutator," Francofurti et Lipsiœ, 1692, p. 564.
u J. B. Silvatici, " Controversi« medicie," Francofurti, 1601, p. 223.
β Axel Garboe, " Kunsthistoriske Studier over ^Edelstene," Kjbenhavn og Kristiania, 1915, p. 254.
*°
See Axel Garboe, "Kulturhistoriske Studier over jEdelstene, med sœrligt
Henbilk paa det 17. Aarhundrede," Kjbenhavn og Kristiania, 1915, pp.
141 sqq.
