# Lapis lazuli, pills of

**Pillole di lapide lazuli**

**Known today as.** The blue stone lapis lazuli, finely powdered, compounded in pills with scammony, black hellebore, and agaric.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: The drastic resins (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/drastic-resin)  
Toxic: yes

> **Caution.** 

## What did Canale use it for?

Among the pills commended for melancholy (ch. 4).

## What does modern science say?

Scammony and black hellebore are drastic purgatives; the stone itself was held to purge melancholy.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **lapis lazuli**: five drachms, powdered and washed
- **helleborin and helleborein**: from the black hellebore
- **scammonin**: 
- **agaric acid (agaricin)**: 
- **epithymum, cloves, sal gemmae**: 

**Mechanism.** A melancholy pill: lapis lazuli with black hellebore, scammony, agaric, epithymum, and polypody in a mass of hiera picra. Culpeper: “It purgeth melancholly very violently.”

**Dose.** A violent purge; black hellebore is poisonous in large doses.

**Standing.** Obsolete. Burton lists pills *de lapide lazulo* among the solid purges of melancholy, and reports Crato’s verdict that lapis lazuli and both hellebores “are no better than poison.”

## Sources

- *The British Pharmaceutical Codex* (1911). London: Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Monographs as transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage, henriettes-herb.com.
- Burton, R. (1621). *The Anatomy of Melancholy*, part 2, sect. 4.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *Pharmacopoeia Londinensis*, “Pilulae de Lapide Lazuli.”

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*Lapis lazuli, pills of.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/lapis-lazuli-pills-of

Historical description, not medical advice.