The pharmaceutical history of Jet (Lapis Gagates)

Jet is an organic mineraloid related to lignitic (sub-bituminous) coals and whose medicinal uses throughout the history of pharmacy are reviewed here for the first time. The uses of jet (Gagates) as an item of materia medica are traced from such classical writings as those of Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides and Damigeron through medieval works such as those of Al Tifaschi, Vincent of Beauvais and Marbode of Rennes, lapidaries and bestiaries, to the medical texts of early modern times. Many of the applications of jet, pulverised or distilled to form a medicinal oil, were established early on in the history of the medicament, but embellished and supplemented in later works. Jet was employed in numerous dosage forms (fumigant, emollient, balsam, and plaster) in the treatment of ‘suffocation of the mother’, menstrual problems, to ease childbirth and placental delivery, epilepsy, tinnitus, melancholy, poor eyesight, gout, scrofula, a range of urogenital, dental, respiratory and abdominal problems, plus oedema, wens, malaria, leprosy, genital warts, bruises and contusions.