Diamond
This gem possesses the most marvellous virtues.
It gives victory to him who carries it bound on his left arm whatever the number of his enemies. Panics, pestilences, enchantments-all fly before it; hence, it is good for sleepwalkers and for the insane. It deprives the lodestone of its virtue, and one variety, the Arabian diamond, is said to attract iron more powerfully than the magnet itself. The ancients believed that neither fire nor blows would overcome its hardness, unless macerated with fresh goat's blood; and Cyprian, Austin, Isidore, and others of the fathers, adopting this notion, have used it to illustrate the method by which the blood of the Cross softens the heart of man. If bound to a magnet, the diamond, according to the belief of the ancients, will deprive it of its virtue.