Topaz—Saint Hildegard’s Cure

Sailors once used this golden gem to shed light of the water during moonless nights. Topaz was also used as an aphrodisiac and to prevent the excesses of love, functions that certainly don’t seem to go together. Ground into a dust and mixed with rose water, topaz was used to treat excessive bleeding. Similarly, powdered topaz mixed with wine was a treatment for insanity once upon a time. The ancients used topaz to guard against magicians by setting it in a gold bracelet and wearing it on the left arm. Saint Hildegard of Bingen, who suggested topaz was an aid to poor vision, placed the stone in wine for three straight days and then gently rubbed it on the eye. The wine could then be drunk—after removing the stone, of course. This is one of the first written records of a gem elixir. Medieval physicians also used topaz to treat the plague and its accompanying stores, and several miracles were attributed to a particular stone that had been in the possession of Pope Clement VI and Pope Gregory II.