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Magic Stones and Electric Gems: India

In the sixteenth century in India, it was believed that a small quantity of loadstone taken internally preserved the vigor of youth, and Garcias ab Orta relates that a king of Ceylon, when an old man, ordered that cooking utensils of this material should be made for him, and had all his food cooked in these. Garcias claims to have this information direct from a Jew, Isaac of Cairo, who was ordered to make the vessels.

A loadstone amulet for the cure of gout is stated to have been worn by a native of the English county of Essex. The stone was sewed up in a flannel covering to which was attached a black ribbon for suspension from the neck. Of course it was worn beneath the clothing, although the encasing flannel must have prevented direct contact with the skin. This piece of magnetic iron ore measured about an inch and a half in width, and was two-tenths of an inch thick. The patient, a Mr. Pelly, was an elderly man, who had suffered for some time from annually recurring attacks of gout which prostrated him for from three to four months. Learning of the reputed virtues of loadstones, more especially of those of Golconda, he sent to India for one and he is said to have been thereby relieved of his disease.