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The Eagle-Stone Author(s): A. A. Barb Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 13, No. 3/4 (1950), pp. 316-318Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750216Accessed: 07-09-2015 13:57 UTC

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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

BIRDS AND MEDICAL MAGIC

i. THE EAGLE-STONE

The Eagle-stone was recently the subject of an interesting article by C. N. Brome-

head.' This name, as the author points out, was in use from the first to the eighteenth century A.D. for "hollow stones containing loose matter, a smaller stone or sand, which rattles when shaken," and throughout this period tradition attributed magical, super- natural, or at least empirically proved medical properties to these stones, mainly in the field of obstetrics. In the pre-Christian era, Bromehead finds the eagle-stone men- tioned only in the mineralogical treatise of Theophrastus (Aristotelian school, ca. 300 B.c.), where stones of this nature are obviously referred to, although they are given no specific name.

One important monograph is however omitted from Bromehead's useful biblio- graphy.'In i665 the German physicianJohann Lorenz Bausch, founder and first president of a German Academy of Natural Sciences (Academia Naturae Curiosorum), published two medico-mineralogical treatises in Latii,2 one of which deals' with the eagle-stone (Aetites).3 This little work (79 pages) is of considerable interest, not only because in it we find the whole European learned tradition of the age summed up by a sober and scholarly sexa- genarian, but also as demonstrating how even in the seventeenth century a man like Bausch for all his scientific qualifications still sub- scribes to something--however little4--of the

time-honoured faith in the eagle-stone as materia medica.5

Bausch's treatise supplies some useful in- formation supplementary to that found in Bromehead's sources, and a few points should be mentioned. For instance, he gives five plates of engravings, showing various speci- mens of the eagle-stone.6 He also refeirs (p. I7) to certain substitutes for the eagle- stone, consisting of dried beans (faba purgatrix, called "St. Thomas' Hearts," possibly a species of Entada) containing seeds which

1 C. N. Bromehead, "Aetites or the Eagle-stone," Antiquity, XXI, March 1947, PP. 16-22. Cf. also Isis, XL, 1949, P. 176.

SJoh. Laurentii Bauschi, Med. D. et Physici Reip. Suinfurtensis ordinani, Schediasmata bina curiosa de lapids Haematite et Aetite, ad mentem Academiae Naturae Curi- osorum congesta, Leipzig, 1665. 3 De Lapide Aetite schediasma, ad modum et mentem Academiae Naturae Curiosorum congestum h Joh. Laurent. Bauschio. More than a generation earlier another German physician, Wilhelm Laurenberg the younger, son of the famous professor of medicine and mathe- matics in Rostock, also wrote a monograph on the eagle-stone: Guilielmi Laurembergii Historica descriptio aetitis seu lapidis aquilae . . ., Rostock, 1627. Laurenberg however, with his uncritical attitude to ancient tradi- tion and his belief in all sorts of magic, falls far behind Bausch.

' In chapter VI, pp. 59-65, "De viribus aetitis fabulosis," he deals with such fables as the use of the eagle-stone to catch thieves, to detect the misconduct of wives, as a love charm, etc. The story that if the

stone is fixed to the top of a tree the fruit will stay on, whereas if placed at the root it causes the fruit to fall, Bausch was able to refute from his own experience, having made the test hon an apple treie for six days. Laurenberg, on the other hand, who had read of the eagle-stone's being so cold that if placed in a cauldron of boiling water it would stop the water boiling, made the experiment with ten different specimens of the stone, but came to the conclusion that they wrere not powerful enough (op. cit., fol. G 6).

SThat Bausch himself considered his treatise as primarily a contribution to practical obstetrics is shown in his "Prooemium," pp. I-8, dealing with the dangers and complications of child-birth. At the be- ginning of chapter V, "De viribus

ae.titis veris," p. 4i,

he states that much has been written about the stone "vana, quae non solum medicinae, sed et naturae limites egrediuntur," but he gives a long list of authori- ties for the fact that the eagle-stone "foetum retineat et ab abortu praeservet," and includes not

.only references to books but also quotations from letters written by medical colleagues. He writes (p. 44):

. . . trahere enim" (sc. aetitem) "legitimo modo applicatum ad se partum praeter testimonia iam citatorum medicorum experientia etiam clarum notumque est." And although he quotes in extenso (p. 49) C. Gesner's unconditional refutation of the eagle-stone superstition (from Lib. III, histor. animal., fol. m. 183, 184) and adds other quotations from in- credulous or doubting authors, he concludes: "Sed experientiae et testimoniis tot tantorumque, quos supra nominavi, virorum, nolim ego in totum contradicere, auctoritates auctoritatibus et experientiam experientiae opponens ... Hoc tamen affirmare ausim, non cui- cumque partus difficultati opitulari posse .. ." (p. 51); and he proceeds to give prescriptions containing eagle- stone, not for obstetrics only, but for increasing the milk of suckling mothers, for wounds and to stop bleeding, against poison, serpents, stone-diseases, etc. The use of powdered eagle-stone in pills, ointments, liniments, or plasters is actually still advised in Zedler's Grossem Universal Lexicon, I, 1732, col. 526, although the usefulness of the stone as such is there definitely rejected as "imaginary, not proved by experience." Not until the 19th century do we find all medical use of the eagle-stone discarded as "gutherzige Leicht- gliubigkeit der Alten" (Ersch and Gruber, Enzyclo- paedie der Wissenschaften und Kiinste, I, 18i8, p. 480).

6 Opposite pp. 8, i8, 20, 40, 73. Figs. I-9 are repro- duced from Basil Besler's Fasciculus rariorum..., Nuremberg, 16I6; figs. 10-14from Ferrante Imperato's Historia naturale, Naples, 1599; and figs. 15-18 from specimens apparently collected by Bausch.

316

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BIRDS AND MEDICAL MAGIC 317

rattle, as do the contents of the eagle-stone. (In this connexion, it may be suggested that' the drawing from Windsor published by Bromehead, showing two "small Aetites with strings attached," may represent some such botanical substitute for the stone; at all events, Bausch's dried beans may throw some light on the opinion expressed by Bernard Palissy1 according to which eagle-stones are petrified fruits with loose kernels inside.) Again, in chapter vm (p. 68) Bausch gives the current prices for eagle-stones (including tax!) in the dispensaries of Augsburg, Frank- fort-on-Main, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, May- ence, Hesse, Wittenberg and Bremen, stress- ing the fact that prices have fallen since De Boodt quoted them in 16o9.2

More important however than the addi- tional information contained in Bausch's monograph is the fact that one can trace the history of the eagle-stone backwards through as many centuries B.c. as Bromehead follows it up in the Christian era. R. Campbell Thompson, in his Dictionary of Assyrian Chemistry and Geology,s deals at length with the ABAN ERt, the "pregnant stone." If one compares the astonishing wealth of minera- logical and medical information on this stone, revealed by the Assyrian texts, with the data collected, for example, by Bausch, one cannot but agree with Thompson in identifying the ABAN ERt with the Aetites, the eagle-stone of the ancients (Greek altos =eagle). Thompson sees in the tradition which connects the stone with the eagle "an echo of the Babylonian legend of Etana wherein the eagle provides Etana's wife with the 'birth drug'."' I wonder whether he is right here. A casual remark which he makes in the same con- text, to the effect that there may perhaps be an ancient pun on the word ERO, which

means both "eagle" and "pregnant," seems to me far more significant.

It is not at all surprising that a stone carry- ing one or more small stones in a hollow within it should have been considered by primitive man as a "pregnant stone." This was, as we saw, its Assyrian name, which seems to have been handed down concur- rently with the name "eagle-stone," for we find even Bausch still writing that the Aetites "is also called the 'pregnant stone,' either because it has another little stone or some other matter5 within it, like an embryo en- closed within a womb, or because it is of help to pregnant women."6 Nor is it extra- ordinary that according to the similia similibus of primitive medicine, such a stone should have been credited with the property of helping the pregnant, whether women or animals.7

What does need explanation is the story that this stone is to be found in eagles' nests.8

1Quoted by Bromehead, op. cit., p. I8. *De Boodt's price list is the only one known to

Bromehead (op. cit., p. 21). However Laurenberg (op. cit., fol. D 4, D 8, D 9, etc.) also quotes the prices of the different varieties. An advertisement in the London Gazette in I686 offers one guinea reward to the finder of a lost eagle-stone (.Notes and Queries, 8th ser., V, 1894, p. 428).

' Oxford, 1936; pp. Io4-8. 4Op. cit., p. Io5. He quotes the Arabic writers Ibn

Beithar and El-Ghafeki (Ibn Beithar's quotation of Aristotle refers, of course, only to the apocryphal and abstruse so-called "Stone-book of Aristotle"), the first for the story that when the female eagle is about to lay, her mate places this stone on her and relieves her, the second for the tradition that eagles take the stone to their young as a talisman against snakes.

' Water, for instance; this species, the "Enhydros," is included by Laurenberg and Bausch among the eagle- stones, and similarly the Assyrian texts occasionally mention the "dew" of an eagle-stone (cf. Thompson, op. cit., p. io6, n. i). Bausch has a separate chapter (VII, pp. 65-7) "De viribus Geodis et Enhydri." * Bausch, op. cit., p. I5: "Lapis Praegnans etiam appellatur, vel quod intus, velut in utero, lapillum alterum aut aliud quid, tanquam embryonem vel foetum inclusum habeat, vel quod praegnantibus prosit." (See also Pliny, N.H., X, 12.) The Aetites is called Enkyos in the Hellenistic books of magic, the Kyranides (cf. the i2th century Latin translation: "Aquilinus lapis gravidus est"; L. Delatte, Textes latins et vieuxfranais relatifs au Cyranides, 1942, PP. 19, 147). The smaller varieties of Aetites are in the Kyranides called Okytokios: "id est velociter pariens" (ibid., p. 92). J. Ruska, Griechische Planetendarstellungen' in arabischen Steinbiichern, Heidelberg, 1919, notes that the Okytokios of the Kyranides is the "(lapis) festinans partum" (op. cit., p., n. 12 and p. 35), the "Mushil al-wilidat" (idem, Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, Heidelberg, 19I2, pp. 18, 54, 165, 202: "lapis qui cito facit parere;" cf. also idem, Das Steinbuch aus der Kosmographie des ... al- Kazwinf, Heidelberg, 1896, p. I8).

'See above, p. 317, n. 4, and the studies by Ruska quoted in the preceding note; e.g. Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 203: "Istud idem facit iste lapis omnibus bestiis super quas ponitur; facit enim eas parere statim."

* The reasons given why eagles should furnish their nests in this way vary from writer to writer. See above, p. 317, n. 4, and compare the Greek and Roman authors quoted in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie, I, s.v. Aetites. We find conflicting statements even in a single author, Pliny, who tells us (a) that the stone is built into the nests of eagles (N.H., X, 12), (b) that without it the eagle cannot bring forth (N.H., XXXVI, 149), and (c) that the stone is so called because its colour resembles that of the eagle's tail (N.H., XXXVII, 187). According to the Kyranides it is found in the head of a fish called "eagle"; others write that it grows in the eagle's belly (Bausch, op. cit., p. 14;

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318 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES Generation after generation must surely have discovered that this is untrue,1 and the most likely hypothesis is that it was invented to explain the already firmly established name "eagle-stone." To the origin of the latter, the Assyrian ABAN ERi Or "stone pregnant" seems to furnish the simple and obvious clue: as we have already mentioned, ERU means "to conceive, to be pregnant," but also has other meanings: "copper (bronze)" and "the eagle."2 The name ABAN ERi thus gives scope for what Thompson calls "an ancient pun." This kind of pun (by a coincidence, his example is the same word ERU) is men- tioned by Thompson in quite another con- text,3 in connexion with the "outrageous custom of certain learned circles to conceal their knowledge from the lay world in a fog ofjargon"--due presumably to the desire for "professional protection." He gives instances from certain texts of the second millennium B.c. of clear instructions to "keep it dark" and continues: "We can see in our Babylonian tablet of seventeenth-century chemistry every characteristic of the later specialists. The writer makes a point of using the strangest possible cuneiform signs, and at the same time rare or, for that matter, new values to some of those others which are better known to us; he uses Sumerian ideograms in such a way as to show that he intends to pun on the value of the Semitic equivalents, taking for instance the sign for 'eagle' in Sumerian, which has the Semitic value ERO, which is ingeniously meant here to be read as ERO 'copper.' For whom he intended this text we cannot say, but the handwriting is so beautiful that it suggests the existence of a professional library."4

It was no doubt from medical literature of similar date and mentality that the "eagle- stone" ("stone pregnant" for the professional adept) started its course through the millen- nia. When in the seventeenth century A.D. the brave Dr. Bauschius had to struggle through an inextricable jungle of abstruse fables, he was only reaping what his pro- fessional colleagues of the seventeenth century B.c. had sown.5

Laurenberg, op. cit., fol. B 12); there are statements that it protects the young eagles from snakes or from poison, that it cools the excessive heat of the eagle which would burn the eggs (cf. p. 317, n. 4 above), and so on. A very comprehensive bibliography, from which, unfortunately, Bausch has again been omitted, is to be found in Handw6rterbuch des deutschen Aber- glaubens, I, 1927, col. 189 ff. 1 This is one fact about which Bausch feels definitely certain: that eagle-stones are not found in eagles' nests (op. cit., pp. 13, 34).

2 See W. Muss-Arnolt, A Concise Dictionary of the Assyrian Language, 1905, p. 93 f.:

ER,) (I) to conceive, be pregnant [quotes "aban e-ri-e" and "aban 1I e-ri-e" as "a stone helping or preventing conception"];

ERU (2) eagle; ERU (3) copper, bronze. Cf. also C. Bezold, Babylonisch-Assyrisches Glossar, 1926, pp. 63-4. 3 Op. tit., p. xii. 4 This method of concealing one's real meaning is known to us ad nauseam from the alchemistic books of the Middle Ages. It may not be so well known that

there is an ancient Greek magic papyrus (about 100 A.D.,

cf. Preisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, II,

p. 83 f.) which gives a key to the assumed and fictitious names which the temple scribes used for herbs and other ingredients when writing out their magic recipes, for fear that otherwise the man in the street might have access to their professional knowledge. Thus they write "snake's head," meaning leech, "tripe" ("suet from the belly") meaning camomile, "snake's blood," meaning the haematite stone, a "physician's bone," meaning ordinary sandstone, etc.; but to confuse the uninitiated completely, they cunningly write "blood of the porcupine" when they really do mean the blood of the porcupine! For the actual use of such secret names in ancient Egyptian medicine cf. H. Schelenz, Geschichte der Pharmazie, Berlin, 1904, p. 37 f-

5 If the eagle-stone superstition is derived from Assyrian science, then not only the obstetrical but also the other alleged virtues of the Aetites can be explained. The great majority of eagle-stones are iron-oxides, either limonite ("brown" haematite) or haematite proper ("red" haematite). According to Thompson this "connection with iron was apparently recognized by the Assyrians" (op. cit., p. 10o5). Now to each of these iron-ores-to the two species of haematite and also to magnetite, which is closely related chemically to haematite-certain magic powers were attributed. (To the ancient oriental mind these properties followed logically from the nature of the stone, but all logical basis disappeared in Roman and mediaeval times.) The magnetic iron oxide was believed to attract not only iron but other things also (e.g. the child from the womb, the apples on the tree-see above, p. 316, n. 4) ; it therefore fosters friendship and sexual attraction (ibid.). The haematite-"blood-stone" from its blood- coloured powder--stops bleeding (see above, p. 316, n. 5) not only of wounds, but of menses also; it there- fore helps conception and is a protection against mis- carriage. Moreover, as the "stone of the mountains," the particular delight of Shamash, sun-god and supreme judge, it is also the "stone of truth" (cf. Thompson, op. cit., pp. 85, 86); hence its power to detect unfaithful wives and to catch thieves (above, P. 316, n. 4), properties usually attributed to magnetite and haematite. As for the cooling property of the eagle-stone (above, p. 316, n. 4, p. 317, n. 8), this may be explained by the fact that the magnetite and haematite being dark in colour were connected with Saturn and therefore "cold."

2. THE VULTURE EPISTLE

n an article in Speculum6 L. C. MacKinney gives the Latin text, together with his

English translation, of "An Unpublished

S Vol. XVIII, I943, PP. 494-6.

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