Eagle-stone
Aetites
- Known today as
- A hollow nodule of iron oxide with a loose stone rattling inside.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- iron oxide and clay, a loose core
- Earliest authority here
- Pliny (AD 23/24–79)
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
Eagle-stone: what was it used for?
An amulet of childbirth: worn on the arm to keep the child in the womb, bound to the thigh to bring it out.
Eagle-stone: what does modern science say?
No effect; a mineral curiosity.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- iron oxide and claya hollow geode of limonite or clay-ironstone
- a loose corewhich rattles
- Mechanism
- A hollow iron concretion with a loose nucleus, a stone within a stone, which by resemblance kept the child in the womb or brought it out; worn on the arm it delivers nothing, and the rattle is the whole of its physics. Still sold in the nineteenth century for lying-in.
- Toxic dose
- Inert.
- Standing
- A curiosity of the cabinet.
- Forbes, T. R. (1966). The Midwife and the Witch. Yale University Press, ch. 5. Verified against its record · doi:10.2307/2799505
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Eagle-stone: what lore surrounds it?
It was lent from woman to woman and passed down in families into the seventeenth century.
Eagle-stone: what did the older authorities say?
- Pliny
- Says eagles carry it to their nests, and that it holds another stone within it as a womb holds a child.
Sources
- Pliny, Natural History XXXVI. Primary text
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Sources
- 2 cited: 1 verified against its record, 1 primary text.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026
- Chicago
“Eagle-stone.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified September 25, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eagle-stone.
- MLA
“Eagle-stone.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 25 Sept. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eagle-stone. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Eagle-stone. (2026, September 25). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eagle-stone
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See Also
Also in Pliny the Elder
Elecampane in Pliny the Elder · Dragon’s blood in Pliny the Elder · Elf-shot in Pliny the Elder · Damascus prunes in Pliny the Elder · everything Pliny the Elder names →
Drawing on the same sources: Pliny
Nearby in the alphabet
Earth of the Holy Land · Earthworm (washed in wine, dried, powdered, or boiled in oil) · Dover’s powder (with salts, in a powder) · Elder (Sambucus nigra) · Dittany (Origanum dictamnus, famous in antiquity for drawing out arrows) · Dill (Anethum graveolens)
Historical description, not medical advice.