140 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
asthma
and stilled thirst. Taken regularly for a long period it acted as a
powerful general tonic, and had the special effects of strengthening
the voice and rendering the hair glossy ; but all these good effects
could only be secured by the use of unwrought jade.54
The lapis nephriticus (jade)
was held to be a remedy for cedematous affections of the feet. As this
stone was so highly in favor in Europe for a century or two after it
had first been brought from America by the Spaniards, many were of the
opinion that it should be constantly worn to exert its full curative
power. There were some, however, who argued that with this as with
other remedies, constant and unremitting use weakened the effect, so
that when the wearer was suddenly attacked by some disorder for which
jade was a cure, his system would have become so habituated to its
action that it would no longer work as a remedy.58
Of the lapis nephriticus the
old Danish writer, Caspar Bertholin, relates in 1628 that four
prominent citizens of Copenhagen, whom he had recommended to wear it to
break up the calculi with which they were afflicted, could testify to
its worth, adding, somewhat naively, ' ' at least two of them can, for
the two others are dead—but not of the stone. ' ' He himself, however,
although he had sent for specimens at great expense, to Venice,
Nuremberg and Batavia, could not gain any relief from his trouble, but
nevertheless, firm in his conviction of the special curative power of
jade, he asserts that the calculi which tormented him must have been
exceptionally hard and flint-like, so that they could not be broken
up. The vogue enjoyed by this supposed remedy in the Denmark of the
time is illustrated in the case of the reign-
"T'ang
Jung-tso, " YU-ahuo " (a discourse on jade), trans, by Stephen W.
Bushell; Investigations and Studies in Jade, The Bishop Collection, New
York, 1900, pp. 329, 330.
S5
Jacobi Wolff, " Curiosus amuletorum scrutator," Francofurti et Lipsiae,
1692, pp. 218, 219; citing principally, Bartholin!, " De lapide
nephritico."
