a salve was produced that gave very beneficial results in cases of scrofula.70
Even as a toilet preparation jet was recommended for use, and a most
excellent dentifrice is said to have been made from it. In this
connection jet was credited with tonic as well as cleansing
properties, as is shown by the words of Bartholomäus Anglicus, who
declares that this material was especially beneficial for "feeble teeth
and waggyng," since it strengthened them and made them firm.71
The
delusions and hallucinations of melancholic subjects were believed to
be put to flight by the power of jet, either in its solid form or when
reduced to a solution. The fact that this material was often used for
the beads of rosaries was thought to have some connection with its
supposed virtues, since the bad dreams or dreadful hallucinations
sometimes accompanying melancholia were designated as "demons," and
thus the prayers counted oif on jet beads might be supposed to have
the greater power to banish the devil and his black angels. The old
writer who cites these particulars about jet, adds that there was to be
found in the river Nile a black stone the size of a bean, at sight of
which dogs would stop barking, and which also drove away evil spirits.
Here we have another among many instances of the curious blending of
the doctrines of sympathy and antipathy, the black stone repelling the
imps of darkness and nullifying the spells of the Black Art.72
The lapis Ar menus was well known to the Arabs under the name hajer Armeny, and their medical writers describe it quite accurately and distinguish it from the somewhat
"Plinii, "Naturalis historia," lib. xxxvi, cap. 34.
n Bartholomew Anglici, " De proprietatibus rerum," London, Wynkyn de Worde, 1495, lib. ivi, cap. 48 ; De gagate.
"Johannis Baptist» Port» " Phytognomica," Francofurti, 1591, pp. 170, 171.
