128 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
physician
who compounded it, had an immense vogue in England. This man is said to
have got more than £50,000 ($250,000) from the sale of this single
remedy. It is stated to have contained Oriental bezoar (the most
important ingredient), white amber, red coral, crab's eyes, powdered
hartshorn, pearl and black crab's claws; certainly a most incongruous
mixture and one well calculated to test the resisting powers of the
person to whom it was administered.22
A
modern writer finds in the homeopathic theory of medicine an
explanation of the apparent therapeutic effects of precious stones.23
For if the smaller the dose the greater the effect, then such
super-subtle emanations as are thought to proceed from precious stones
must have effects still more powerful than those of the most highly
diluted tinctures administered by homeopathists of the old school.
Christian Science, however, with its bold denial of the existence of
disease, and with its purely spiritual treatment of the "mental error"
that is supposed to be at the root of all morbid symptoms, could even
more easily account for the apparent cures wrought by merely wearing
precious stones. The belief in their remedial virtue would serve to
remove the morbid impression, and would restore the mind to its normal
and healthy state.
An
instance from our own day of the application of a mineral substance
externally for the cure of disease, appears in the use of the uranium
pitchblende occurring in Joachimsthal, Bohemia. This is enclosed in
leather bags and applied to the head for the cure of headache. The most
violent pains are said to be relieved in a short time by this treatment,
" John and Andrew Van Rymsdyk, " Museum Brittanicum," 2 ed. revised and corrected by P. Boyle, London, 1791, p. 51.
" Fernie, " Precious Stones for Curative Wear," Bristol, 1907, p. 256.
