ing
sovereign, Christian IV, who wore on his person a green nephrite until
the day of his death. This stone is still preserved in the Rosenborg
Museum collection among the relics of this king.86
Johannes de Laet was much impressed with the virtues of the lapis nephriticus as
were most of his learned contemporaries, since he assures his readers
that an oblong, smooth, moderately thick stone in his possession,
having the color of honey and a very oily surface, had given his wife
great relief from the severe pains caused by renal calculus, when the
stone was bound upon her wrist. This particular specimen he sent a few
years later to his Danish friend, Ole Worms, for the latter's cabinet
of natural history. De Laet writes that all the virtues claimed for
nephrite by Monardes in 1574, were observable in his specimen.57
As
late as 1726, there were some who retained faith in the curative power
of jade, for a record of that date informs us that the traveller Paul
Lucas had just come back to Paris from the Orient, and had brought with
him a specimen of the lapis nephriticus which he intended to have cut
up into thin slabs to bestow upon such of his friends as were suffering
from gravel or calculus, or similar troubles.58
After
relating that a specimen of American jadeite had been sent to him prior
to 1602, Oleandro Arnobio states that when he showed it to a Signor
Michele Mercato, "a man well versed in medicine and in the knowledge of
minerals and herbs," the latter immediately recognized it and called it
"nephite," from its virtues, saying also that he had found it useful in
aiding parturition. A pharmacist, to whom it
"
Axel Garboe, " Kulturhistoriske Studier over ^delstene, med eserligt
Henblik paa det 17. Aarhundrede," Kobenhavn og Kristiania, 1915, pp.
204, 205; citing Ca3pari Bertholini, " De lapide nephritico opusculum,"
1628.
" Johannes de Laet, " De gemrnis et lapidibus libri duo," Lugduni Bata-vorum [1647], p. 84.
" " Sammlung von Natur und Medicin-wie auch hierzu gehörigen Kunst-und Literatur-Geschichten," Breslau, 1726, p. 262.
