Important: Safety Warning
This page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Pearls
Occult properties of. Amongst the early Greeks and Romans, the wearing of gems as an amulet or talisman, was much in vogue. For this purpose pearls were often made into crowns. Rich says: "Pope Adrian, anxious to secure all the virtues in his favour, wore an amulet composed of a sunbaked toad, arsenic, tormentil, pearl, coral, hyacinth, smarag, and tragacanth."
It is also said that to dream of pearls means many tears. Their occult virtues are brought forth by being boiled in meat, when they heal the quartan ague: bruised and taken with milk, they are good for ulcers, and clear the Philalethes voice. They also comfort the heart and render their possessor chaste.