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ON THE VIRTUES OP FABULOUS STONES 187
the
determining factor. Sometimes it was as the form of some creature held
by the superstitious to be particularly endowed with mysterious
qualities beneficial to mankind, at other times the fossil form
suggested some part of the human body, and was therefore believed to
afford protection to this part, or to cure any disease affecting it.
This will be made clearer by a brief notice of some of the principal
fossils which were favored in ancient and medieval times, either by
popular superstition or by those who from interested motives made use
of these superstitions for the purpose of gain, although they may have
only half believed in the real virtue of the objects they sold.
The
remedial quality of fossils, which were believed to have been formed
from shells and marine animals deposited during the deluge, is
ascribed by Mentzel to the fact that they had been produced by the
action
of
fire, and hence had the same quality as though prepared and calcined by
the chemist's art. They were therefore believed to have great medicinal
virtues in the cure of diseases.63
The lapis Judaicus 64
is described as of oval form, in shape like an olive, and sometimes
provided with a stem at the upper part as though it had grown on a
tree. The stone was soft and friable and in color either white or
grayish. The "male" variety had several rows of equidistant spines,
while the "female" was quite smooth. The description and the figured
representations of the lapis Judaious show that it was a form of
pentremite—that is, a form of crinoid. This fossil, which was said to
come from Syria and Palestine, was taken in solution as a remedy for
calculus. The larger, male
"Christiani Mentzelii, "Lapis Bononensis," Bilefeldiœ, 1675, p. 47. "Mercati, "Metallotheca Vaticana," Romae, 1719, p. 227.
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