Abstract
SUMMARY: Because of their colour, rarity and other physical features, minerals were valued for at least 40.000 years. Minerals and gemstones gave prestige and power to their owners and were believed to give or protect health. Their medical and apotropaic use was and still is universal. In this study we
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investigate mainly the medical use of hematite or bloodstone (iron oxide) in folk medicine. The first representation of medical use was found in the tomb of the Egyptian sculptor Apy (1200 BC): hematite paste was used to cure eye diseases. Also many Greek and Roman sources show the use of hematite in connection with eye diseases and complaints involving blood loss (a.o. Evax-Damigeron, Celsus. Pline the Elder, Dioscorides, Galen). During the Middle Ages many antidotaria and lapidaria were published (Nicolaus Salernitanus, Marbod de Rennes, Jacob van Maerlant, Johannis de Cuba, Teifaschi). Albertus Magnus (ca. 1208-1280) demystified the healing power of minerals and gemstones by formulating a rational explanation for their properties. These lapidaria and medical books were written in Greek, Latin or Arabic, but knew very early translations and many reprints into a striking number of vernacular tongues. This is illustrating the need and demand for more accessibility to medical information in times where all social groups were touched by plagues and epidemics. From the sixteenth century on, a critical approach involving experiments tried to get an insight into the mechanism of nature (Joannes van Helmont) and rejected the iatromathematical medicine which was based on magic of sympathy and antipathy of the stars, planets, minerals, etc... Although not everybody believed in the curing properties of minerals like hematite, it will be at the end of the eighteenth century that stones will disappear from the European pharmacopoeias. The German encyclopaedist Zedler (1706-1751) and the French pharmacist Panckoucke (1788-1844) do not reject the curing potential of all minerals: both do believe in the curing properties of hematite and its derivates. Nevertheless the use of minerals still has addicts not only during the twentieth century (Süssenguth), but even today (homeopathy, lithotherapy, modem witches, alternative healing systems, etc.). The internal use of hematite as potential source of iron to the body is questionable. Medical publications consider that hematite - as well as other iron minerals - is not, or at a negligible level, taken up by the gastric system. Important in this respect is autosuggestion; the psychological influence of the healer may also play an important role.
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