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188 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
stones,
were regarded as the better for renal calculus and the smaller, female
stones, for vesical calculus. Hence this fossil was sometimes called
tecolithoe, from tekeiv, to dissolve, and λίθος, stone.65 Pliny also states that this name was applied to certain concretions found in sponges and supposed to possess similar virtues.86
Of the remedial use of this stone, or fossil, Galen states that when
prescribed for vesical calculi, it was pulverized in a mortar, and the
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powder
being mixed with water, three glasses of the solution were given. He
adds, however : ' ' I must say that as far as I have seen they have no
effect, but they are efficient in the case of renal calculi."67
No fossils were more prized than the so-called glosso-petrœ or "tongue-stones." Although these were really the fossilized or petrified teeth of a species of shark, Pliny and
ω
Plinii, " H'istoria Naturalis," lib. xxxvii, cap. 68. " Ibid., lib.
xxxvi, cap. 35. See also Dioscorides V, 155 ; AEtius II, 19. Claudii
Galeni, " Opera Omnia," ed. Kuhn, Lipsia?, 1826, vol. xii, p. 199. De
eimplic. med., lib. vii, cap. 2.
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