Black Coral

Abstract

IN a short article by Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner published in Nature of December 15, 1921 (vol. 108, p. 505), attention was directed to the use of black coral by the natives of Java for making bracelets which are believed to act as a cure for rheumatism and to the widespread belief, “from Suez to the most distant parts of the Pacific,” in the efficacy of certain magical powers of this substance. The use of black coral for this purpose is not only very widespread at the present day but has been prevalent also among both barbaric and civilised races from time immemorial. The άντιπαθές of the ancient Greeks was in all probability a kind of black coral, and was used as an antidote to the stings of scorpions and for other medical and magical purposes. According to some of the older writers the herb given by Mercury to Ulysses as a charm to protect him from Circe was a piece of Anti-pathes. Rumphius quotes Salmasius as having written in his notes on Solinus that Antipathes was used as a protection against sorcery. Pliny refers to it in his alphabetical list of stones. He says, Book XXXVII., Chapter 54, “Antipathes is black and not transparent: the mode of testing for it is by boiling it in milk, to which, if genuine, it imparts an odour (?) like that of myrrh.” Dioscorides regarded Antipathes as a kind of black coral which was possessed of certain medical properties.