Show pearls as medicine scotland still produces pearls found mainly in the fresh water mussel cleopatra was not the only person who swallowed a dissolved pearl until comparatively recent times they were used medicinally in europe and still appear in the materia mater ls medica of china according to one chinese au tho dhority thorl rity ty a pearl after being treated with pumice stone and honeycomb mixed with the gall of a serpent might be drawn out to the length of three or four feet make it into pills and swallow them henceforth food will be unnecessary the suggestion Is not that the patient would be fin dished off but that he would live food less forever |