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Stones of Healing: Chinese

The Chinese Taoist adept T'ao Hung Ching, who flourished A.D. 500, directs that when powdered jade is prescribed by a physician, carved jade must not be used, nor unwrought jade that has been buried in tombs. While sometimes a very fine powder was recommended, the usual plan was to reduce the jade by pounding it into pieces the size of small pulse. When administered in this form the Chinese physicians asserted that the powder passed unchanged through the system, but that the essential principle, the innate virtue, was absorbed by the patient. It relieved heart-burn and asthma and stilled thirst. Taken regularly for a long period it acted as a powerful general tonic, and had the special effects of strengthening the voice and rendering the hair glossy; but all these good effects could only be secured by the use of unwrought jade. The lapis nephriticus (jade) was held to be a remedy for oedematous affections of the feet. As this stone was so highly in favor in Europe for a century or two after it had first been brought from America by the Spaniards, many were of the opinion that it should be constantly worn to exert its full curative power. There were some, however, who argued that with this as with other remedies, constant and unremitting use weakened the effect, so that when the wearer was suddenly attacked by some disorder for which jade was a cure, his system would have become so habituated to its action that it would no longer work as a remedy.