Arnstadt.
As the youth sickened unto death a red coral which he was wearing
turned first whitish, then of a dirty yellow, and finally became
covered with black spots. To the anxious questions of the youth's
sister, Wittich could only give a mournful answer, telling her to take
away the coral, for death was surely approaching, and this
prognostication proved to be only too true, as in a few hours young
Erasmus was dead.37
A rosary of coral beads was sometimes called in France a pater de sang, or
"blood-rosary," since it was believed to check hemorrhages. An
anonymous author of an eighteenth century treatise on superstitions,
assuming that this effect could be produced only by thickening the
blood, asserts that such a rosary might do more harm than good, for if
it possessed this power at one time, it must possess it constantly,
and its action would be very injurious.38 Pearls and corals
were still freely used as therapeutic agents in the last half of the
seventeenth century, for we are told that Louis XIV (1638-1715), in
1655, took tablets containing gold and pearls, which had been
prescribed for him by his physician Vallot, and, in 1664, a remedy
composed of pearls and corals was recommended by the same authority.39
A
stone, which from the description seems to have been an almost
colorless variety of corundum with a faint reddish tint, is recommended
in the Syrian Aristotle for the alleviation of diseases of the breast.
To have the proper effect
"
Johannes Wittichius, " Bericht von den wunderbaren Bezoardischen
Steinen," Leipzig, 1589, p. 56, cited in Axel Garboe's "
Kunsthistoriske Studier over AEdelstene," Kobenhavn og Kristiania,
1915, p. 98.
""Histoire critique des practiques superstitieuses; par un prêtre de l'Oratoire," Paris, 1702, p. 326.
" Hovarka and Kronfeld, " Vergleichende Volksmedizin," Stuttgart, 1908, toL i, p. 107.
