Today's Top Stories. Ab Exercises for a Stronger Core. A year-old woman accidentally swallowed her engagement ring while sleeping on September Jenna Evans dreamt that she needed to protect her ring by consuming it during a robbery, and she woke up to learn that she'd actually swallowed it.
Evans had to have the ring removed surgically. He died soon afterwards of an intestinal issue. Paracelsus , a pioneer of toxicology, is rumoured to have died from diamond dust. What a coincidence. Catherine de Medici is said to have employed diamond dust to eliminate her enemies. Apparently testing her poisonous mixtures by pretending to help those in poverty, this powder of succession may have actually been mostly arsenic.
Thomas Overbury was said to have been poisoned with various substances, diamond powder being one of the potential attempts. Again, an animal tale but this time involving a cat who suffered no ill effects following ingestion of the powder is sometimes told.
During the time of our beloved Benvenuto things are rather muddled. Consider the following dichotomy: while Cellini describes the potential harms of diamond dust, it seems that his contemporary Pope Clement VII was given a combination preparation as a medication.
The Renaissance period certainly seems an important time for the cultural fascination of diamond toxicity. Considerable ambiguity surrounding the nature and circumstances of death of a number of well-known victims has invoked a mysterious aura about the nature of diamonds in health that has extended to the present and has perhaps been somewhat romanticised.
Perhaps the idea of diamond toxicity, a revered gemstone of high value used for nefarious purposes, is just far more interesting than the reality.
Garcia de Orta perhaps highlights the cultural transmission of ideas between East and West. A Portugese physician working mainly in Goa, he acknowledges that the common belief at the time was that diamond dust was poisonous but contests this.
Dysentery makes another appearance as he recounts the story of a wife who unsuccessfully attempted to poison her chronically dysenteric husband with diamond powder.
He highlights the incongruity of the contemporary beliefs contrasting the concern that diamonds could be used as a poison that whereas in India diamonds were also being used medicinally by injecting them into the bladder to shatter vesical calculi. Characteristically, Voltaire also took a swipe at the idea of diamond as a poison.
He considers the death of Henrietta of England in , rumoured to have been poisoned with diamond powder:. The poison, added he, was a diamond reduced to powder, and strewed over strawberries, instead of sugar. The court and city were of opinion that the princess was poisoned with a glass of succory water; after which she felt insupportable pangs, and in a short time died in convulsions.
But the malice of mankind, and a love for the marvellous, were the sole causes of this general persuasion. There could have been no poison in the glass of water, since madam de la Fayette and another person drank the remainder of it, without being in the lease affected.
The powder of diamond is no more poisonions than the powder of coral. In a note about diamond Voltaire adds Small bits of diamond and glass might, by their sharp points, pierce and tear the coats of the intestines: but then it would be impossible to swallow them, and the person would soon be rendered sensible to the danger by the excoriation of the palate and throat.
The powder, if very fine could not do any hurt, and would rather be a remedy, like the filings of iron. Those physicians who have added diamond to the number of potions, should have made a distinction between a diamond reduced to very fine powder, and a diamond fiercely pounded. We see a characteristic Enlightenment take on the issue and Voltaire wants doctors to take note: the physical properties of the diamond in terms of particle size are an important factor in how useless our treatments generally appear to be.
Thanks Voltaire. So what is to be? Did our medical predecessors regard diamond as a healing potion, harmful poison or perhaps both? One source seems to cite the quality of the diamond as the important distinguishing feature: flawed diamonds being poisonous whereas flawless diamonds being beneficial. It was kept as a last resort in times of danger.
And India remains important stop for our diamond story. More modern incarnations of the poisonous diamond appear to have manifested in cinema, especially resonant for those who grew up watching s Bollywood films.
Look at this clip from the movie Muqaddar Ka Sikandar , the Bollywood blockbuster of that was one of the top grossing movies of the decade in India and was also a hit in the Soviet Union:. Although unclear, it seems that scenes like these have fuelled a belief that that licking a diamond can cause death. On closer inspection, it seems that the ring in the Muqaddar Ka Sikandar clip is either coated in a poison or a compartment ring with a poison inside.
With regards to licking, there is a suggestion that centuries ago particularly in the Indian subcontinent the agents of the ruling elite wore diamond rings which were coated or by some other means processed with cyanide which could be licked in order to commit suicide if aprehended by an enemy.
Alternatively, compartment rings , also sometimes known as locket, vessel, pillbox poison or even Borgia rings more Italian Renaissance connections are rings that have a small container under a hinged cover. The cover may even be thin to allow the wearer to bite through to the contents underneath. These compartments have been used throughout history for various reasons ranging from the protection that a part of a holy relic may bring the wearer through to the hair or portraits of loved ones.
However, they are perhaps most notorious for concealing poison either to assist suicide or to commit murder. Lucrezia Borgia is rumoured to have possessed of concealment ring that she used to poison drinks. According to NBC , local police commissioner SR Jangid said of the smuggler, "During questioning, he could not sit comfortably and when questioned, he told the police that he was suffering from piles.
Two words: blood diamonds. Live Science. Natalie Wolchover. As an industrial tool, there are many applications. It is resistant to scratching and abrasion so that the finished stone retains its shine and shine. Because of the hardness and unique shape in which it is made, the diamond is slowly polished.
It processes the adamantine surface finely polished and flat, with very sharp and straight edges between the facets. No other jewel can fit this polishing standard. Diamond has the highest coefficient of all known substances' thermal conductivity because the compact crystal structure emits severe heat.
The diamond's thermal conductivity is five times larger than copper, thereby explaining why the diamond first felt the cold touch but quickly warmed the heat from the fingers. Most rare diamonds produce odd natural disasters in pink, blue, green, orange, or even red.
These diamonds are known as fancy diamonds and are rated by a variety of color standards. Excess diamonds are the most expensive because of their extreme rarity. By the middle of the 20th century, De Beers began using his motto "diamond forever" in their commercials. The campaign was so successful that diamonds today are strongly linked to engagements and eternal love.
It is the only mineral stone that consists of one element that makes it the purest jewel on earth. Therefore, it is appropriate that the purest and most brilliant gems in the world make the engagement ring a perfect symbol of eternal love. It is a myth; you cannot die if you try to lick a diamond. Diamonds do not emit toxically or release toxic substances.
However, a person may die if he swallows a diamond because a diamond is tough and has sharp edges, and can cut some part of the intestine in the stomach. Since diamond is the hardest stone, breaking it is not easy. If you lick a diamond, nothing will happen as no poison is coated on it, nor is it made from Potassium Cyanide.
Diamonds are of different colors, such as pink, white, champagne, pink champagne, yellow, blue, and green. The pink diamond is by far the weakest and most precious diamond and goes beyond the white diamond's beauty. However, less than one-tenth of a percent of all diamonds are classified as roses. Argyle pink diamonds are available in various shades, from gentle pastel pink to red and purple-red.
This differentiates them from diamonds from India, Brazil, and Africa, which are lighter. The price of pink diamond Argyle depends on the intensity of the color. Unlike pink diamonds, white diamonds are produced all over the world and are available in various shapes and sizes.
White Argyle Minerals have better quality. The white diamond shows the pink stripes on the upper side.
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