The magic of jewels and charms

The bezoars of Borneo are taken either from monkeys or porcupines. For medicinal use, the gratings are dissolved in water and the solution is administered as required. Skeats relates that he was once asked $200 by a native for a small stone, erroneously asserted to be a bezoar. This stone was carefully wrapped up in cotton and preserved in a tin box with some grains of rice, the owner firmly believing that the stone fed on the rice. A red monkey (semnopithecus) furnishes many of these bezoars, but those from the porcupine are supposed to be so much the more efficacious that the Sultan of Saik claims all bezoars of this kind found in his dominions as his personal property; nevertheless, many are said to be surreptitiously taken out of the country by Malayan or Chinese traders. A remarkably fine specimen in the possession of the Sultan is valued at $900; small ones may be worth no more than $40, but the value increases very rapidly with the size of the concretion. Though it is confidently believed that the bezoars work wonderful cures in diseases of the bowels and of the respiratory organs, the natives value them chiefly as aphrodisiacs, this action being secured either by wearing them or by taking them in solution.[437]

The Chinese work entitled P’ing-chou-k’o-t’an, by Chu Yü, written in the first quarter of the twelfth century, mentions the mo-so stone (the bezoar) and states that it was worn in finger rings. Should anyone have reason to suppose that he had taken poison, all he had to do in order to escape any bad effects was to lick the bezoar stone set in his ring. The Chinese writer adds that it might thus be justly called “a life preserver.”[438]

The Dayaks of Borneo have a method for producing bezoars which they call guligas. This is to shoot an animal with an unpoisoned arrow. When the wound heals, there is often a hardening of the skin, which finally results in the formation of a guliga. In some of these concretions the point of the arrow still remains. The guligas of natural formation are frequently found between the flesh and the skin of apes and porcupines.[439]

In the eighteenth century Valmont de Bomare reports that the bezoars of the hedgehog commanded the highest price. These were greasy and soapy, both to the eye and to the touch, and of a greenish or yellowish color; a few were reddish or blackish. They were so highly valued in Holland that a Jew in Amsterdam asked 6000 livres ($1200) for a specimen in his possession as large as a pigeon’s egg; and such bezoars were even rented in Holland and Portugal, at the rate of one ducat ($2.50) a day, to those who were exposed to contagion, and believed that the bezoars, if worn as amulets, would protect them from the danger.[440]

In a letter to the Macon, Georgia, Journal and Messenger of August, 1854, Major J. D. Wilkes, of Dooley County, relates that while hunting he shot down a fine buck. He states that on cutting up the animal he found a stone of a dark greenish color, about where the windpipe joins the lights. It was from an inch and a half to two inches long, and quite heavy for its size, although it appeared to be porous. Major Wilkes says that he had heard of similar stones from old hunters, and had been told that they possessed the power of extracting poison, but that they were rarely found. The communication proceeds to relate a case where this stone was successfully applied to a dog which had been bitten by a rattlesnake. We have here one of the few notices extant regarding an American bezoar stone.[441]

An American bezoar taken from the stomach of a deer killed in the Chilhowee Mountains, in Tennessee, was reported in 1866 by Prof. David Christy. In extracting this concretion the hunter had damaged the outer layer, but when this was removed there remained a perfectly smooth, round body, about the size and shape of a hen’s egg, and of a light brown color. When Professor Christy obtained it, this bezoar had already acquired the reputation of possessing great though somewhat undefined virtues; he presented it to Professor Wood of the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati.[442]

Writing of bezoars in the year 1876, Dr. Learned states that Signor Korkos, of Morocco, showed him one for which he had paid twelve dollars. It was as large as a small walnut, the surface being smooth and cream-colored; a section revealed the presence of the concentric circular layers characterizing the formation of this concretion. For remedial use it was rubbed on a stone until a sufficient quantity of its powder was obtained, which was then diluted in liquid and administered as a potion. Strict dieting and absolute rest in the house for seven days were an essential part of the treatment, the bezoar powder being more especially recommended in diseases of the heart, liver or other internal organs, but for sore eyes and for rheumatism its virtues were praised. This illustrates a modern employment of the concretion in Mohammedan Morocco.[443]

Some medical authorities of the sixteenth century were disposed to regard the calculus produced by the human subject as superior in medicinal efficacy to the far-famed bezoar. One of their arguments was that as man was the highest type of organized being a human product must exceed in value one from an animal source; then again, his food was of the best, superior in quality to that taken by the animals furnishing the bezoars. For every theory a proof can be found if one is on the lookout for it, and therefore we need not be surprised if the virtues of calculi or gravel were also supported by evidence. In 1624 or 1625 the Dutch city of Leyden was visited by the plague, and to the great regret of the physicians there was no supply of bezoars on hand. Hereupon they were driven to make use of human gravel, and found to their astonishment that this was an even more excellent sudorific than the bezoar itself.[444]

Although there is no direct relation between bezoars and the hair-balls sometimes found in the stomach or intestines of human beings, there is some slight analogy, as the animal bezoar concretions seem to have been formed about a nucleus consisting of some indigestible material that has been swallowed by an animal. From the report of hospital surgeons, it appears that these hair-balls, which result from a long-continued habit of swallowing hair, are almost exclusively found in the bodies of women, generally of very young girls. The large size which they sometimes attain is very surprising; in several instances they have so filled up the stomach that they are moulded by it into its exact shape. Although when a hair-ball has reached this size, and indeed long before, the most alarming symptoms set in, frequently recurrent vomiting being the most characteristic, we cannot but wonder how it is possible for any food to enter and pass through the stomach under such conditions, the only explanation being the great power of dilation this organ possesses. Its disposition to patiently tolerate foreign bodies where it cannot expel them, renders it often a poor guide in a diagnosis based upon the patient’s personal experience. These hair-balls accumulate and lodge not only in the stomach but also in the intestines, and in either case the eventual result is almost certain to be fatal unless the obstacle is removed by operation. Very occasionally only does nature react sufficiently to expel the impediment without surgical aid.

Of course all treatment is vain unless the morbid habit of hair-swallowing can be overcome. This does not seem to be an accompaniment of a distinctly diseased mental condition, although that is sometimes coincident, but must assuredly result from some derangement or abnormality of the nervous centres, inducing a morbid and unnatural craving.[445]

The serpent-stone, called by Pliny ovum anguinum, or “serpent’s egg,” is said to have been worn by the Druid priests as a badge of distinction. Pliny relates that he had seen one of them which was as large as a moderate-sized apple, its shell being a cartilaginous substance. It was supposed to be generated in midsummer out of the saliva and slime exuding from a knot of intertwined serpents. When the moisture had coagulated and formed into a sphere, this was tossed in the air by the hissing snakes, and, in order to preserve its efficacy as a talisman, the finder had to catch it in a linen cloth before it fell to the ground. Such “serpent’s eggs” were in high favor with the Romans, who believed they procured for the wearers success in all disputes and the protection of kings. So great was the faith reposed in their magical virtues that Claudius is said to have condemned to death a Roman knight, one of the Vecontii, simply because he had an ovum anguinum concealed in his bosom when he appeared in court during the trial of a lawsuit in which he was involved. In order to enhance the value of this amulet, the story was circulated that great dangers were incurred in securing it; for the snakes pursued any one who seized the egg and he could only escape by fording a river, across which they could not swim.[446] In later accounts of this amulet it is described as a ring, sometimes composed of a blue stone with an undulating streak or stripe of yellow, thought to represent a snake.

Certain so-called floating-stones have been found in a branch of Mann Creek, a tributary of the Weiser River, which flows into the latter near its confluence with the Snake River in Idaho.[447] These are hollow quartz globes, with a shell so thin that the air in the cavity more than makes up for the specific gravity of the quartz. Some formation similar to this may possibly have been intended by Pliny in his description of the ovum anguinum or serpent’s egg of the Druids, which floated if thrown into a stream, although it is perhaps more probable that these “serpent’s eggs” were shells of the sea-urchin, as they are figured by De Boot and other writers.

The snake-stone, legends regarding which are met with in so many different parts of the world, is known to the Lapps of northern Europe, and strange to say, some of the elements of Pliny’s old recital touching the “serpent’s egg” come out in the account given of it by this primitive race, in general so far removed from any notion of classical tradition. Anyone in search of this stone must resort, according to the Lapps, to the pairing place of snakes, for here they throw the stone, which is small and white, back and forth to one another; he must steal along quietly until he is quite near to the snakes and then snatch the stone as it flies through the air, and run away with it as fast as he can to the nearest piece of water. Should he reach the water before the snake does—for the reptile pursues him—he gains the ownership of the stone; if, however, the snake first reaches the water, this is very dangerous for the man. Hence he should carefully search out the nearest water before snatching the stone, and as the snake will not immediately know what has become of it, and will hunt for it awhile before starting in pursuit of the thief, the latter will have time to come first to the water.[448]

Tertullian writes that the wearing of stones taken from the head of a dragon or of a serpent was especially reprehensible in the case of a Christian; for how could a Christian be said to “bruise the head” of the Old Serpent (Gen. iii, 15) while wearing such a stone about his neck or on his head, and thus testifying to a kind of serpent worship![449]

The Greek poem “Lithica,” belonging to the fourth century B.C., also celebrates the virtues of a “snake-stone,” which is to be pressed closely on the bitten spot; but besides this application, the drinking of undiluted wine in which the stone ostrites had been pulverized, is recommended. This shows that the therapeutic value of alcohol as a stimulant to revive the nerve-centres, paralyzed by the animal poison, was recognized at this time. An unusually precise description is given of the ostrites; it was round, hard, black and rough, and was marked by many wavy lines or veins. Some one of the many varieties of banded agate seems to answer best to this description.[450]

The legend that St. Patrick drove out all snakes from Ireland sometimes took the form that the saint had transformed them into stones. This belief is noted by Andrew Borde, physician and ecclesiastic, who, writing in 1542, mentions some strange stones he had been shown on that island:

I have sene stones the whiche have had the forme and shape of a snake and other venimous wormes. And the people of the countrie sayth that such stones were wormes, and they were turned into stones by the power of God and the prayers of saynt Patrick. And English merchauntes of England do fetch of the erth of Irlonde to caste in their garden’s, to keepe out and to kyll venimous wormes.[451]

The legendary serpent-stone is usually one taken from the reptile’s head, but Welsh tradition tells of one extracted from the tail of a serpent by the hero Peredur, and having the magic property that anyone holding it in one hand would grasp a handful of gold in the other. This stone was generously bestowed upon Etlym by the finder, who only secured it after vanquishing the serpent in a dangerous conflict.[452]

The snake-stone (or “madstone”), in Arabic ḥajar alḥayyat, is described by the Arab writer Kazwini, as being of the size of a small nut. It was found in the heads of certain snakes. To cure the bite of a venomous creature the injured part was to be immersed in sour milk, or in hot water, and when the stone was thrown into the liquid it would immediately attract itself to the bitten part and draw out the poison.[453] The homeopathic idea plays a considerable rôle in the superstitions of the Arabs of northern Africa. To cure the bite or sting of the scorpion, the creature is to be crushed over the wound it has inflicted. If anyone is bitten by a dog, he should cut off some of the animal’s hair and lay this on the bitten part; if, however, the dog was mad, it must be killed, its body opened and the heart removed. This is then to be broiled and eaten by the person who has been bitten.[454]

Many beautiful glass beads of Roman, or perhaps of British fabrication, have been found in Great Britain and Ireland. Upon some of these are bosses composed of white spirals, the body of the bead being blue, red, yellow, or some other brilliant color. These have been called “holy snake beads.” Probably most of them are merely ornamental productions and were not intended to represent serpent-stones. The curious test of the genuineness of an ovum anguinum mentioned by Pliny, namely, that even if set in gold, it would float up a stream against the current, indicates a very porous structure; perhaps some of these serpent’s eggs were hollow, vitrified clay balls with wavy lines on the surface.

De Boot, in his treatise on stones and gems,[455] figures the ovum anguinum, and says that its form was either hemispherical or lenticular. In his opinion the name “serpent’s egg” was given to the stone because on its surface there appeared five ridges, starting from the base and tapering off toward the top. These bore a certain resemblance to a serpent’s or adder’s tail. The stone was believed to protect the wearer from pestilential vapors and from poisons.

The so-called “snake-stones,” many specimens of which have been found in British barrows, bear in the Scottish Lowlands the designation “Adder Stanes.” They are also sometimes called adder-beads or serpent-stones. For the Welsh they were gleini na droedh and for the Irish glaine nan druidhe, the meaning being the same, “Druid’s glass.” Many interesting examples were added to the collection of the Museum of Scotch Antiquaries, one of these being of red glass, spotted with white; another of blue glass, streaked with yellow; other types were of pale green and blue glass, some of these being ribbed while others again were of smooth and plain surface. That the glass “snake-stones” were objects of considerable care and attention is indicated by the mending of a broken specimen shown by Lord Landesborough at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in 1850. This broken bead had been repaired and strengthened by the application of a bronze hoop.[456]

The supposed snake-stones are also to be found among the Cornishmen, who sometimes call these objects milprey or “thousand worms,” and they even lay claim to the power of forcing a snake to fabricate the “stone” by thrusting a hazel-wand into the spirals of a sleeping reptile. In another version it is not a bead that is formed but a ring which grows around a hazel-wand when a snake breathes on it. If water in which this ring has been dipped be given to a human being or an animal that has been bitten by a venomous creature, all ill effects of the bite will be warded off, the water acting as a powerful antidote to the poison.[457]

The belief that the snake-stone of Welsh legend—in reality either a fossil or a bead—was evolved from the venom or saliva ejected by a concourse of hissing snakes, gave rise to a peculiar popular saying among the Welsh to the effect that people who are whispering together mysteriously, and apparently gossiping, or perhaps hatching some mischief, are “blowing the gem.”[458]

Many of the glass beads known as “snake-stones” or “Druid’s glass” are perforated, and this is fancifully explained as being the work of one of the group of snakes which forms the bead. This particular snake thrusts its tail through the viscous mass before it has become hardened into a glass sphere. In various parts of Scotland such beads are treasured up by the peasants; according to the testimony of an English visitor of 1699, who reports that they were hung on children’s necks as protection from whooping-cough and other children’s diseases, and were also valued as talismans productive of good fortune and protective against the onslaught of malevolent spirits. To guard one of these precious beads from the depredations of the dreaded fairies the peasant would keep it enclosed in an iron box, this metal being much feared by the fairies.[459]

A type of snake-stone used in Asia Minor is described as being of a pearly white hue, rounded on one side, and flat on the other. Toward the edge of the flat side runs a fine, wavy, bluish line, the undulations of which are fancied to figure a serpent. The victim of a snake-bite first had the spot rubbed with some kind of sirup; then the stone was applied to the bitten spot, and it would adhere to the inflamed surface for eight days; at the expiration of this time it would fall off. The bite would be entirely healed and would not be followed by ill effects of any kind.[460]

A novel theory in regard to the formation of a type of snake-stones is given by an old Chinese writer. This is that snakes, before they begin to hibernate, swallow some yellow earth and retain this in the gullet until they come forth again in the springtime, when they cast it forth. By this time the earth has acquired the consistency of a stone, the surface remaining yellow, while the interior is black. If picked up during the second phase of the moon this concretion was thought to be a cure for children’s convulsions, and for gravel, and was powdered and given in infusion. The infusion could also be applied with advantage externally to envenomed swellings.[461]

An old manuscript found in a manor house in Essex, England, contains a translation, made in 1732 by an Oxford student, E. Swinton, of some details on the snake-stone, taken from a work published in the same year at Bologna by Nicolo Campitelli. After noting that these stones came from the province of Kwang-shi in China and from different places in India, their appearance and qualities are described. In color they were almost black, some having pale gray or ash-color spots. The test of the genuineness of such a stone was to apply it to the lips; if not a spurious one, it would cling so closely to the membrane that considerable force must be exerted to separate it therefrom. The usual directions are given for its employment in the cure of snake bites, but its usefulness by no means ended here; its curative power was also exhibited in the case of “Scrophulous Eruptions and Pestilential Bubos,” and it could be used in the treatment of malignant tremors, venereal disorders, etc. With the manuscript was found a specimen snake-stone. This was described as being a thin oval body, about an inch in length and three-quarters of an inch broad; the color was gray with light streaks, and the surface was bright and polished.

It was of the consistency of horn, and the writer of the note in the “Lancet” believes that it was part of a stag’s antler or some similar substance, from which the animal matter had been removed by the action of heat; many of the Oriental snake-stones are of this type, but, as we have already seen, a great variety of more or less porous materials have been and are still used in this way in different parts of the world. A practical experiment was made in 1867 by Dr. John Schrott, who excited six cobras to bite a number of pariah dogs. Without delay the snake-stones were applied to the wounds, but they proved absolute failures, death resulting as speedily as though nothing had been done.[462]

Finally, I will mention the snake-stone, which is about the size of a doubloon, some approximating to an oval form, being thicker in the middle and tapering toward the edges. The Indians say that it forms on the head of certain snakes, but I rather believe that the priests of these idolators make them think this, and that this stone is a composition of certain drugs. However this may be, it has great virtue to draw out all the poison, when anyone has been bitten by a venomous creature. If the part that has been bitten has not been punctured, an incision must be made, so that the blood can flow out, and when the stone has been applied, it does not fall off until it has absorbed all the poison which gathers about it. To clean it, woman’s milk is used, or should this be lacking, cow’s milk, and after ten or twelve hours steeping, the milk which has drawn out all the poison takes on the color of pus. Having dined one day with the Archbishop of Goa, he took me into his museum, where he had several curious objects. Among other things he showed me one of these stones, and having told me of its properties, he assured me that but three days before he had seen them tested, and presented the stone to me. As he was traversing a marsh on the Island of Salsate, whereon Goa is situated, to go to a country house, one of those who bore his palanquin, and who was almost entirely naked, was bitten by a snake and was immediately cured by this stone. I have bought several of them, and they are sold only by the brahmins, which makes me think the brahmins themselves make the stones.

There are two methods of testing whether the stone is good or the product of some deception. The first of these tests is to place it in one’s mouth, for then, if it be good, it springs up and cleaves to the palate; the second test is to place it in a glass full of water; if it is not sophisticated, the water begins to seethe, small bubbles rising from the stone at the bottom to the surface of the water.

Thevenot, a French traveller who visited India in 1666, about the time Tavernier was there, asserts that the famous “Stones of the Cobra” were manufactured in the town of Diu, in Guzerat, and that they were made “of the ashes of burnt roots, mingled with a kind of Earth they have, and were again burnt with that Earth, which afterwards is made up into a Paste, of which these Stones are formed.” After describing the process employed for cleaning the stones after they had been used, Thevenot adds that if not freed from the absorbed venom the stones would burst.[464]

Dr. J. Davy examined and analyzed some of these “stones,” and found one of them to be a piece of bone partially calcined. When applied to the tongue or to any other moist surface it adhered firmly. Another, which lacked all absorbent or adhesive power, was said to have saved the life of four men. It therefore appears that while some of the “snake-stones” really possessed some possible curative virtues, others were esteemed only because of a superstitious belief in their magical properties. Kaempfer, writing in 1712, informs us that these stones should always be used in pairs, and applied successively to the wound.[465] The belief in the efficacy of such stones is still general in India, and one of the varieties is supposed to be found in the head of the adjutant bird.[466]

Francisco Redi[467] describes the extraordinary healing power attributed to stones obtained from the heads of certain serpents, called by the Portuguese “cobras de capello,” found throughout Hindostan and Farther India. These stones are claimed to be an infallible remedy for the bites and stings of all kinds of venomous reptiles or animals, and likewise for wounds made by poisoned arrows, etc. He repeats the usual tales of their adhering powerfully when applied to the bite or wound, and clinging to it like a cupping-glass until they had absorbed all the poison, when they would fall off spontaneously, leaving the man or animal sound and free. Then follows the account of steeping the stones in milk to remove the poison, the milk assuming a color between yellow and green. These wonderful stones and the narrations concerning them had been brought to Italy by Catholic missionaries, who seemed to have entire faith in their powers; so that Redi says they offered to prove the accounts by any number of experiments, such as would satisfy the most incredulous, and prove to medical men that Galen was correct when he wrote (Chapter XIV, Book I) that certain medicines attract poison as the magnet does iron. For this purpose a search for vipers, etc., was recommended; but, owing to the season being later and colder than usual, none could at that time be obtained, as they had not emerged from their winter quarters. An experiment was therefore substituted, after much consultation among the learned men of the Academy of Pisa, whereby oil of tobacco was introduced into the leg of a rooster.

This was regarded as one of the most fatal of such substances, and was administered by impregnating a thread with it to the width of four fingers and drawing it through the punctured wound. One of the monks forthwith applied the stone, which behaved in the regular manner described. The bird did not recover, but it survived eight hours, to the admiration of the monks and other spectators of the experiment.