#bonner general health

[tomorrowusa]

Extremist GOP anti-abortion policies in red states are ironically making it difficult for women to give birth in such places.

Hospitals are increasingly closing down their obstetrics units because it’s becoming harder to find doctors who would want to work in areas where they could be prosecuted for providing women’s healthcare.

Brooke Macumber planned to have her fourth child in the same small hospital where two of her older children were born — the same place her husband had been delivered decades earlier.

[ ... ]

Bonner General Health in rural Sandpoint, Idaho, was shuttering its obstetrics unit after almost 75 years. Now, the closest hospital able to deliver her baby is more than an hour’s drive from her home.

[ ... ]

Access to obstetric services has been on the decline for years in rural areas, with at least 89 obstetrics units in rural U.S. hospitals closing their doors between 2015 and 2019, according to the American Hospital Association. More than half of rural counties — home to 2.2 million women of childbearing age — are now maternity-care deserts.

Some obstetricians say the problem has been exacerbated by the recent passage of laws criminalizing abortion, which can make recruiting and retaining physicians all the more difficult.

You can blame the overwhelmingly Republican Idaho legislature for the end of obstetrics at Bonner General Health. 

In a news release announcing the decision on Friday, Bonner General Health officials cited a shortage of pediatricians and decreasing number of deliveries. The release also pointed to the “legal and political climate” in a state where trigger laws banned nearly all abortions after the fall of the constitutional right to an abortion.

“Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving,” it said. “Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.

”Idaho has some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. A trigger law passed in 2020, which the state Supreme Court allowed to take effect last summer, criminalizes the procedure in almost all cases, with possible defenses if a doctor determines it necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman or if the pregnant woman has reported rape or incest to law enforcement. A medical provider who violates the law can face felony charges punishable by two to five years in prison, along with suspension or revocation of their medical license.

Far right Republicans pretend that they are are pro-family. At the behest of extreme fundamentalist Christians they would turn women into little more than baby-making machines. But their laws may be making women reconsider having children because medical care for them is becoming more scarce in rural red states. 

The Idaho Republican Party platform — adopted in the summer of 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that allowed states to ban abortion — goes further. It declares that “abortion is murder from the moment of fertilization” and calls for its prevention “regardless of the circumstances of conception, including persons conceived in rape and incest.” The platform says the party supports criminalizing all abortions within the state.

Republicans legislators in red states are more interested in revoking three centuries of social progress which then results in serious healthcare issues for their constituents.

The loss of labor and delivery services in rural hospitals can be dangerous. An absence of obstetric care is significantly associated with increased preterm births and more births in facilities that lack staffs trained in labor and delivery, according to a 2018 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some patients who have problems in pregnancy walk into centers without obstetrics departments, leaving emergency-medicine doctors to handle issues that may be beyond their expertise.

Gustafson said she fears that Idaho’s maternal death total — which more than doubled from 2019 to 2020, the most recent year for which data is available — will rise with one fewer unit of doctors trained in labor and delivery.

The US already had the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world. The GOP is working to get that rate even higher.

These Republican restrictions on abortion are the products of GOP state legislatures. People tend to pay little attention to state government until it’s too late.

The very first step in ending GOP control is to find out who is representing you in the chambers of your legislature. This site can help with that.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

Once you know who represents you, get active in electing Democrats and defeating fundamentalist anti-woman Republicans.

EDIT: Idaho Republicans are too busy bringing back firing squads to care about obstetric services for constituents. 

Idaho lawmakers approve bill that would allow execution by firing squad    

[thepro-lifemovement]

Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho, announced on Friday that it would no longer provide labor, delivery and a host of other obstetrical services.

The more than 9,000 residents of Sandpoint are now forced to drive 46 miles for the nearest labor and delivery care, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Pro-abortion doctors are forcing women to drive 46 miles labor and delivery care. How messed up is that? They care more about abortion than they do about helping women deliver their babies.

[nonenosome2]

If you saw this in Reddit, you might think this has something to do with anti-abortion stuff, rather than just not being able to afford it. And a lot of people on Reddit did think that.

Oh. And they also conflate 2 different hospitals to try and get them to be the same in your mind. I

I do have to love how these doctors and nurses and such at the Bonner hospital want to kill babies so much they would rather just not deliver a baby at all.

Like many rural hospitals, Valor Health has taken multiple hits in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of staff and nurses who can deliver babies, and the revenue challenges that have dogged rural health care for decades are among the factors the hospital referenced in an announcement posted to its website. “It has been increasingly difficult and unsustainably expensive to recruit and retain a full team of high quality, broad-spectrum nurses to work in a rural setting where nurses need to be proficient in many different fields,” the hospital’s announcement said. Meanwhile, the small county-owned hospital had invested in maternity facilities but projected only 50 deliveries in the coming year, it said in the announcement. There are several hospitals within an hour of Emmett, including hospitals operated by St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus health systems, which have invested heavily in maternity care in the past decade. Bonner General Health in Sandpoint announced March 17 that its leadership “made every effort to avoid eliminating these services, but we have been forced” to do so. The hospital could no longer safely provide the services, it said, due to a lack of pediatricians, fewer patients delivering babies there, and financial limitations. That hospital serves a larger region in the Panhandle. Along with pregnant patients from Sandpoint, those in surrounding Bonner County and Boundary County communities will be directed to a medical center in Coeur d’Alene, about an hour away. Unlike the Bonner County hospital’s announcement, however, Valor Health did not cite Idaho’s legal and political climate around reproductive health care as one of the challenges. “Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving,” Bonner General’s announcement earlier this month said. “Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines.”

[pro-birth]

An update on the Idaho situation!

“The media coverage of BGH’s L&D closure suggests doctors are no longer working at the hospital because of abortion bans. But the hospital’s own press release paints a broader picture, stating multiple reasons for closing L&D.”

Of course this is still a big issue for families in need of care, so please continue to share options when you can!

[houseofbrat]

Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, announced Friday that it will no longer provide obstetrical services to the city of more than 9,000 people, meaning patients will have to drive 46 miles for labor and delivery care. 

The hospital’s board of directors and senior leadership called the decision emotional and difficult, and cited a loss of pediatricians, changing demographics and Idaho’s legal and political climate around health care as the reasons.

[...]

The release also said highly respected, talented physicians are leaving the state, and recruiting replacements will be “extraordinarily difficult.” 

Idaho has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, with affirmative defenses in court only for documented instances of rape, incest or to save the pregnant person’s life. Physicians are subject to felony charges and the revocation of their medical licenses for violating the statute, which the Idaho Supreme Court in January determined is constitutional. 

“The Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care,” the hospital’s news release said. “Consequences for Idaho physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines.”

Dr. Amelia Huntsberger, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Bonner General Health, said in an email to States Newsroom, a national nonprofit whose newsrooms include the Idaho Capital Sun in Boise, that she will soon leave the hospital and the state because of the abortion laws and the Legislature’s decision not to continue the state’s maternal mortality review committee.

[muddypolitics]

(via Gee, Wonder Why This Idaho Hospital Had To Quit Delivering Babies! - Wonkette)

An Idaho hospital is closing its labor and delivery unit, citing the fact that all of their doctors are leaving and they cannot get more because no ob-gyns want to move to Idaho, which has one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the nation.

Via CBS:

An Idaho hospital will stop labor and delivery services, citing doctor shortages and the "political climate," the hospital announced Friday. "Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult," Bonner General Health, located in the city of Sandpoint, said in a news release. Pregnant women who utilized Bonner General, a 25-bed hospital, will now have to drive to hospitals or birthing centers in Coeur d'Alene or Spokane to give birth. In 2022, doctors delivered 265 babies at Bonner General and admitted less than 10 pediatric patients, the hospital said.

[pro-birth]

FYI, this article is also misleading. More fact-checking here.

If you claim to care about maternal health, then maybe look into access to midwifery care and ending hospital monopolies like the Certificate of Need.

A rural pregnant woman in Idaho will now have to travel 46 miles in case of an emergency.

This is totally a normal thing and not at all batshit.

[conroyassociatesinc]

Factors To Consider While Choosing Accounting And Auditing In Idaho

Bookkeeping services is the process of registering financial transactions and managing them by preparing financial statements. The bookkeeping process is offered by a service provider who helps the business manage their income statements and balance sheets efficiently. Tasks like purchases, sales, invoices, and payrolls are managed for accounting and auditing in Idaho by bookkeepers. The bookkeeping service is responsible for giving an outcome that is accurate with the data, and the process must be followed under the accounting principles (GAAP).

Financial services are critical to ensure a company's economic health and stability, which will help in its growth and success.

The bookkeepers are known as the financial gatekeepers whose function is to manage the cash flow and examine financial errors. At the same time, the bookkeeping service does not provide services as an accountant. The responsibility of the accountant varies from the bookkeepers, as they offer tax filing preparation, analyze financial documents, and generate financial records like balance sheets. In this blog, you will get a guide of factors to consider while choosing a bookkeeping service provider. The accounting and bookkeeping services in Bonners Ferry will lead all business owners to ensure a seamless and successful partnership.

 Industry Experience

When choosing a bookkeeping service provider, it is vital to know their industry experience and then appoint them. The exp[erinced bookers will be familiar with your type of industry and can easily understand your company's financial needs effectively. A professional relationship with a better understanding will lead to successfully served businesses with relevant levels of expertise and insights that will be beneficial for your company. You can appoint the best accounting and tax services in bonners ferry by examining the industry experience of the service provider.

 Service Offerings

Research about the range of services which is available by the bookkeeping service providers. Also, before appointing it, determine that they offer a holistic approach to giving solutions that meet your company’s business needs. Look at the services like financial statement preparation, payroll management, and financial advisory services, as they will be responsible for evaluating your current and future financial requirements to be fulfilled efficiently.

 Reputation

When selecting a bookkeeping service provider, you need to look after their market reputation as it plays a vital role in what services they offer and customer satisfaction. Take time to research the service provider standing in the industry. You can do it by analyzing the online reviews and feedback from the customers and reading testimonials and case studies. Accounting and auditing in Idaho is a reputed business that offers satisfying customer service.

Technology Integration

It is essential for any industry to adopt the latest technology in their services. So, with the bookkeeping service providers, it is vital to check that they are providing the latest technology solutions, such as advanced accounting software, cloud-based solutions, and automation technology. It is helpful to streamline the workflow, and the accuracy of the output will also be enhanced. 

Keep Your Financial Records To The Point With Bookkeeping Service Here!

If you are looking for a service provider who will help you in managing your business finance efficiently. Then Conroy & Associates, Inc. is the right place. Thye offer bookkeeping services with accounting and auditing in Idaho. To know more, visit their website.

[the-sayuri-rin]

An Idaho hospital said it will no longer be providing obstetrical care due in part to the state's "legal and political climate" -- obliquely referring to recent restrictions on abortions.

In a news release, Bonner General Health in Sandpoint -- 400 miles north of Boise and serving about 9,000 people -- said it would end its labor & delivery services by mid-May.

"We have made every effort to avoid eliminating these services," Ford Elsaesser, BGH's board president, said in a statement. "We hoped to be the exception, but our challenges are impossible to overcome now."

[industrybuzz]

Idaho Hospital Turning Pregnant Patients Away

Idaho Hospital Turning Pregnant Patients Away

An Idaho hospital will be no longer delivering babies, to protect their doctors among political firestorm. Bonner General Health in Sandpoint, Idaho, is going to stop providing any obstetrical care under new state laws. After the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe vs Wade last year, Idaho immediately banned nearly all abortions. The measures they passed include subjecting physicians to prosecution…

[intothewildsstuff]

Idaho hospital says it is ending labor and delivery services amid 'political climate' - ABC News

And the Idaho legislature apparently don't care about women and newborns health....just owning the libs and controlling women. And women and babies will suffer for it.

[theyoungturks]

A hospital in rural Idaho will stop delivering babies because doctors are leaving the state due to a ban on abortion. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://www.commondreams.org/news/idaho-hospital-labor-delivery "Rural areas in the U.S. have faced a decline in hospitals that provide obstetric services for years, and the fate of one hospital in northern Idaho suggests that abortion bans could worsen the trend. As The Washington Post reported reported Tuesday, Bonner General Health in Sandpoint, Idaho has been forced to announce the impending closure of its labor and delivery department, citing staffing issues as well as the state's punitive abortion ban—one of the strictest in the nation—and threats from state Republicans to make the law even more stringent. The state's ban criminalizes abortion cases in almost all cases and threatens doctors who provide care with felony charges, suspension or termination of their medical license, and up to five years in prison. It includes potential exceptions for people whose pregnancies result from rape or incest and people who doctors determine face life-threatening pregnancy complications—but as Common Dreams has reported, such exceptions have led medical providers to withhold care until a patient is sufficiently ill, placing them in danger." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Unbossed with Nina Turner https://www.youtube.com/unbossedtyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 230323__TA04IdahoHospital by The Young Turks

[worldspotlightnews]

Idaho hospital to stop delivering babies, partly due to ‘political climate’

Comment on this story Comment Brooke Macumber planned to have her fourth child in the same small hospital where two of her older children were born — the same place her husband had been delivered decades earlier. But at 23 weeks pregnant, she found out that the facility, Bonner General Health in rural Sandpoint, Idaho, was shuttering its obstetrics unit after almost 75 years. Now, the closest…

[eagletek]

Idaho hospital to stop delivering babies. One reason? ‘Bills that criminalize physicians’

Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, announced Friday that it will no longer provide obstetrical services to the city of more than 9,000 people, meaning patients will have to drive 46 miles for labor and delivery care. The hospital’s board of directors and senior leadership called the decision emotional and difficult, and cited a loss of pediatricians, changing demographics and…

[moremedtech]

Custom, 3D-printed heart replicas look and pump just like the real thing

Custom, 3D-printed heart replicas look and pump just like the real thing. The soft robotic models are patient-specific and could help clinicians zero in on the best implant for an individual. No two hearts beat alike. The size and shape of the heart can vary from one person to the next. These differences can be particularly pronounced for people living with heart disease, as their hearts and major vessels work harder to overcome any compromised function. MIT engineers are hoping to help doctors tailor treatments to patients’ specific heart form and function, with a custom robotic heart. The team has developed a procedure to 3D print a soft and flexible replica of a patient’s heart. They can then control the replica’s action to mimic that patient’s blood-pumping ability. The procedure involves first converting medical images of a patient’s heart into a three-dimensional computer model, which the researchers can then 3D print using a polymer-based ink. The result is a soft, flexible shell in the exact shape of the patient’s own heart. The team can also use this approach to print a patient’s aorta — the major artery that carries blood out of the heart to the rest of the body. To mimic the heart’s pumping action, the team has fabricated sleeves similar to blood pressure cuffs that wrap around a printed heart and aorta. The underside of each sleeve resembles precisely patterned bubble wrap. When the sleeve is connected to a pneumatic system, researchers can tune the outflowing air to rhythmically inflate the sleeve’s bubbles and contract the heart, mimicking its pumping action. The researchers can also inflate a separate sleeve surrounding a printed aorta to constrict the vessel. This constriction, they say, can be tuned to mimic aortic stenosis — a condition in which the aortic valve narrows, causing the heart to work harder to force blood through the body. Doctors commonly treat aortic stenosis by surgically implanting a synthetic valve designed to widen the aorta’s natural valve. In the future, the team says that doctors could potentially use their new procedure to first print a patient’s heart and aorta, then implant a variety of valves into the printed model to see which design results in the best function and fit for that particular patient. The heart replicas could also be used by research labs and the medical device industry as realistic platforms for testing therapies for various types of heart disease. “All hearts are different,” says Luca Rosalia, a graduate student in the MIT-Harvard Program in Health Sciences and Technology. “There are massive variations, especially when patients are sick. The advantage of our system is that we can recreate not just the form of a patient’s heart, but also its function in both physiology and disease.” Rosalia and his colleagues report their results in a study appearing today in Science Robotics. MIT co-authors include Caglar Ozturk, Debkalpa Goswami, Jean Bonnemain, Sophie Wang, and Ellen Roche, along with Benjamin Bonner of Massachusetts General Hospital, James Weaver of Harvard University, and Christopher Nguyen, Rishi Puri, and Samir Kapadia at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The action of the soft, robotic models can be controlled to mimic the patient’s blood-pumping ability. Credits:Image: Melanie Gonick, MIT

Print and pump

n January 2020, team members, led by mechanical engineering professor Ellen Roche, developed a “biorobotic hybrid heart” — a general replica of a heart, made from synthetic muscle containing small, inflatable cylinders, which they could control to mimic the contractions of a real beating heart. Shortly after those efforts, the Covid-19 pandemic forced Roche’s lab, along with most others on campus, to temporarily close. Undeterred, Rosalia continued tweaking the heart-pumping design at home. “I recreated the whole system in my dorm room that March,” Rosalia recalls Months later, the lab reopened, and the team continued where it left off, working to improve the control of the heart-pumping sleeve, which they tested in animal and computational models. They then expanded their approach to develop sleeves and heart replicas that are specific to individual patients. For this, they turned to 3D printing. “There is a lot of interest in the medical field in using 3D printing technology to accurately recreate patient anatomy for use in preprocedural planning and training,” notes Wang, who is a vascular surgery resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

An inclusive design

In the new study, the team took advantage of 3D printing to produce custom replicas of actual patients’ hearts. They used a polymer-based ink that, once printed and cured, can squeeze and stretch, similarly to a real beating heart. As their source material, the researchers used medical scans of 15 patients diagnosed with aortic stenosis. The team converted each patient’s images into a three-dimensional computer model of the patient’s left ventricle (the main pumping chamber of the heart) and aorta. They fed this model into a 3D printer to generate a soft, anatomically accurate shell of both the ventricle and vessel. The team also fabricated sleeves to wrap around the printed forms. They tailored each sleeve’s pockets such that, when wrapped around their respective forms and connected to a small air pumping system, the sleeves could be tuned separately to realistically contract and constrict the printed models. https://youtu.be/52qNGqBbTQA The researchers showed that for each model heart, they could accurately recreate the same heart-pumping pressures and flows that were previously measured in each respective patient. “Being able to match the patients’ flows and pressures was very encouraging,” Roche says. “We’re not only printing the heart’s anatomy, but also replicating its mechanics and physiology. That’s the part that we get excited about.” Going a step further, the team aimed to replicate some of the interventions that a handful of the patients underwent, to see whether the printed heart and vessel responded in the same way. Some patients had received valve implants designed to widen the aorta. Roche and her colleagues implanted similar valves in the printed aortas modeled after each patient. When they activated the printed heart to pump, they observed that the implanted valve produced similarly improved flows as in actual patients following their surgical implants. Finally, the team used an actuated printed heart to compare implants of different sizes, to see which would result in the best fit and flow — something they envision clinicians could potentially do for their patients in the future. “Patients would get their imaging done, which they do anyway, and we would use that to make this system, ideally within the day,” says co-author Nguyen. “Once it’s up and running, clinicians could test different valve types and sizes and see which works best, then use that to implant.” Ultimately, Roche says the patient-specific replicas could help develop and identify ideal treatments for individuals with unique and challenging cardiac geometries. “Designing inclusively for a large range of anatomies, and testing interventions across this range, may increase the addressable target population for minimally invasive procedures,” Roche says This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Heart Lung Blood Institute. Source: MIT Read the full article

[thegrapeandthefig]

Actual ancient lapidaries or "the ancient Greeks and Romans probably didn't use crystals the way you think they did"

The Internet being of cyclic nature, I feel like talks about the use of crystals come back to view at least twice a year. I usually don't pay much attention to those discussions, since they tend to be unfruitful and, to be quite frank, boring. However, the topic of the historicity of linking certain stones to certain gods -or more widely- properties is an interesting one nonetheless.

But first, a disclaimer: 1) Some of the practices I will be describing below are not safe and should not be reproduced at home. I feel like this should go without saying, but the fact Goop's jade egg is still on the market only proves the necessity of such disclaimer. 2) I do not care about people's personal practices. If you associate certain stones with deities, good for you. It's not my problem and this post isn't meant to attack your practice. It's merely meant to put some things within context.

Now that this is out of the way, let's define the matter at hand. Let me start by saying that from this point on, I will refer to "crystals" as "gems" or "stones". Both terms seem to be more appropriate and widely used in academical context.

The sources

We do not lack evidence of gemstone usage in the Ancient world, both literary and archaeological. Usage included jewelry making, medicine, and magic. The first is a given so I won't dwell on it. I am more interested in the other two and how they relate to each other.

On the literary side, the earliest Greek treatise on stones is from Theophrastus (371 - 287 BC), titled Περὶ λίθων ("On stones", quite literally). In this work, he lists the stones known to him and their properties from a physical standpoint and explains where they are found in the Greek world. He gives, in general, very few indications of potential magical properties.

We start having much more literature around the properties of gems in the Roman period, especially around the 1st century BC onwards, with Pliny the Elder's (23/24 – 79 AD) Natural History, and the works of Greek physicians like Dioscorides (40–90 AD) and Galen (129 – 216 AD). Some of those works will be considered of importance throughout the Middle Ages, while some will be "rediscovered" at the Renaissance.

On the archaeological side, we have thousands of magical gems (see: the Campbell Bonner database). Here is the official definition given by the database:

"The designation 'magical gem' is a category of modern archaeology, which denotes the most sophisticated amulet type of the Roman Imperial Period. Magical gems were carved of precious stones sized 1 to 3 centimeters, chiefly between the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD, and were designed to bring their owners health, prosperity and love. Their typology follows the shapes of Graeco-Roman glyptics complemented with a few Mesopotamian and Egyptian variants. They are distinguished by their characteristic engravings of inscriptions, signs and images, which usually appear on both faces of the gems, and sometimes even on the edge."

Their usage

Interestingly, the timeframe the previous definition gives fits the one where we find the majority of literary sources. This is probably no coincidence, and it probably isn't a coincidence that interest in stones and gems seems to appear after the Classical period, especially if we consider the importance of Egyptian and Mesopotamian elements found on them. This would coincide nicely with the growth of the Hellenistic Empire.

Before I jump into what would be considered "magical use" (the lines are blurry, as we'll see), let me give a few examples of medical use taken from Dioscorides:

IV, 139 λίθος σάπφειρος, Lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli seems to help people stung by scorpions when drunk. It is drunk for internal ulcerations and it shrinks excrescences, defects inside the cornea, and pustules on the eyes, and it joins together the rents of their membranes.

Here we have an example of how the stone could be used as an ingredient: filed down to a powdery state and most likely mixed with wine before being drunk by the patient. Another example, still from Dioscorides, would be qualified today as on leaning more on the magical side:

V, 142 λίθος ίασπις, Jasper There is a jasper which is emerald green, another like crystal resembling phlegm, another light blue, another smoky as if it were blackened with smoke, one which has cracks that are quite white <and> shining and which is called astrios, and there is one called terebinthizon, resembling turquoise in color. All seem to guard against evil when hung on a person and to promote a speedy birth when tied around the thigh.

While, in the case of Selenite, both "medical" and "magical" properties are offered:

V, 141 λίθος σεληνίτης, Selenite Selenite, which some people have called aphroselenos because it is found at night when the moon waxes, occurs in Arabia. It is white, transparent, and light. Filed down, it is given as a drink to epileptics and women use it as a protective amulet. It also seems to make trees fruitful when attached on them.

There comes the issue of correspondences. Here Dioscorides gives us straightforward uses but doesn't necessarily tell if the colour matters and/or if something should be carved on it. Meanwhile, the archaeological pieces we have are all inscribed somehow (and it's very likely how the modern eye could distinguish them from just any shiny rock).

So the question is, what makes magical gems magical? Attilio Mastrocinque in his article The Colours of Magical Gems noticed a pattern between the colour of the chosen gem and the organ/bodily function/secretion it is supposed to regulate or heal:

The series of gems discussed above show that haematite (and its reddish-brown variety, i.e. limonite) was used to protect red-brown organs, such as the liver and kidney, and that natural pieces of this stone actually have the shape and gloss of these organs. The inscriptions on several gems confirm that they were amulets for the liver. Moreover the Syrian god Adad was known for his stone kidney, and a Syrian haematite intaglio is shaped like a kidney. The colour and properties of stones were supposed to be syntonic with the world of the gods.

Stomach or intestinal diseases, pregnancy and the womb’s other functions, and breast-feeding were dealt with thanks to Chnoubis and his gems. The liquid secretions on which bodily health depended are red (blood), black (when the intestine is bleeding), green or transparent (the stomach juices), and white (milk). Chnoubis gems are rarely red or yellow, whereas they are often white, green, and sometimes transparent or black. If we reject the idea of casuality, we must look for a logic or a taxonomy in the choice of colour. A possible explanation emerges from the colours, because white stones were suitable for breast-feeding and the iconography of a threeheaded Chnoubis appears on a white gem. This iconography is known as useful for breast-feeding. Therefore: white gems = milk. Greek physicians recommended, in case of stomach diseases, green or transparent stones with the image of this god. Therefore: green or transparent gems = the stomach, whose juices are green or transparent. Other physicians recommended transparent stones for pleuritic and hip diseases, and therefore another possibility is: transparent gems = pleura and hips; but in this case the colour was scarcely related with the disease. Another numerous group of gems shows this god over the womb, and these gems are of haematite.

The divinities majoritarily represented on magical gems are not strictly Greek. Chnoubis or Chnoumis is the Greek name of the Egyptian creator god Chnoum, for example. Even hematite gems which are described as representing Ares are explained by Mastrocinque this way:

This Ares is not the Greek god, but the result of cultural synthesis in which a Syrian god assumed the iconography of the Homeric god. This iconography was used to represent Syrian gods like Azizos and Arsou, or the warlike god of the Nabataeans.

It seems more and more clear that the Greeks and, by extension, the Romans, adopted a long Egyptian and Eastern tradition. There are, still, gems that clearly show Greco-Roman elements:

Pliny describes a type of coral called Gorgonia, after the monster’s name. In fact a series of coral gems with Medusa’s face have been preserved (Pl. 3a). Red jasper could be used as a substitute for coral, as is proved by gems with the same subject. These gems often have an image of Hekate on the reverse; both Gorgon and Hekate were considered to be powerful characters in averting demons, illnesses and enemies.

In this case, we find both the Gorgon and Hekate in very traditional apotropaic positions. More interesting, however, in a series of amulets showing Herakles fighting the Nemean lion serving this purpose (Christopher Faraone, Text, Image and Medium: The Evolution of Graeco-Roman Magical Gemstones):

In his chapter ‘On the colicky condition’ Alexander of Tralles, a 6th-century ad Greek physician, prescribes the following treatment for colic, a painful disease of the lower intestine: ‘On a Median stone engrave Heracles standing upright and throttling a lion. Set it in a gold ring and give it to the patient to wear’ (2.579). There is some confusion about the precise identity of the ‘Median stone’ in this passage, which may have been a form of haematite or magnetite but Alexander’s description coincides well with a popular series of amulets that consist of an opaque red stone (almost always jasper) engraved with the wrestling scene that he describes; [...]

This particular case is interesting because, as Faraone notes, we know of the existence of a carnelian scarab with the same scene that was found in a 5th century BC grave in Cyprus. More curious is the fact that this specific scarab also has two eyes of Horus next to Herakles. It is impossible to know if this amulet was just that, a protective amulet featuring two highly apotropaic symbols or if it was intended as something else.

One last notable example before I start wrapping things up. There is a series of lapis-lazuli gems that represent Aphrodite Anadyomene ("rising from the sea"). The Campbell Bonner database counts 23 of these. On these, Faraone says:

On the back of the stone we find the magical word arôriphrasis which is typical of these amulets, as we can see from one of the lapis stones in the British Museum (Pl. 12c). Scholars, myself included, sometimes repeat the claim that arôriphrasis transliterates an Egyptian title of the goddess Hathor as ‘The Lady of the Blue Stone’; the epithet exists, but apparently bears no phonetic resemblance to the word arôriphrasis on the gemstone. We do find, however, on one lapis gem of this type the name ‘<H>athor’ inscribed before arôriphrasis, suggesting that the word – whatever it means – was, indeed, an epithet of some sort, and since Hathor and Aphrodite are assimilated in Graeco-Roman Egypt, there is some logic to the appearance of the name and Aphrodite on these blue stones. As in the case of the other types, a rare inscribed prayer tells us much about the perceived power of this kind of amulet: on a greenish lapis gem of another type (with Aphrodite and Ares) we read: ‘Arôriphrasis, give your charm to the bearer’. It would seem, then, that like the name Chnoubis, arôriphrasis identifies a divinity – probably Aphrodite/Hathor – who is thereby invoked to produce charm and beauty in the person who wears the gem.

Once again, we have a case of an association linked to a Greco-Egyptian syncretism. It is worth noting, however, that other gems representing Aphrodite aren't necessarily blue. She is also found on hematite, carnelian, or amethyst, amongst others. This would lead us to believe that the choice of the gem is not made upon the basis of correspondence with a divinity, rather than the function, as seen with the medical examples above or, as with this example, a specific epithet or specific voces magicae (and even then, there is an example of Aphrodite Anadyomene on orange/red carnelian...)

This perhaps explains why it is possible to find such statements in some studies:

"It may be observed that gemstones depicting Jupiter are frequently cut on milky chalcedony; those showing Sol are often on heliotrope which was thought to reflect the sun’s rays; of Mars on red jasper or cornelian, the colour of blood; of Demeter on green jasper which has a sympathy with vegetation and of Bacchus on amethyst which was believed to be wine coloured hand to prevent drunkenness. Such systems of correspondences, differing in detail no doubt, form a continuous tradition linking the Hellenistic age to the very end of the Middle Ages. During all that time lapidaries, stone books, were consulted. No doubt they were in Roman Britain."

This quote I took from Religion in Roman Britain by Martin Henig, who only references Joan Evans as source (Magical jewels of the middle ages and the renaissance particularly in England, 1922). Some of those observations, which clearly are hard to consider valid for generalization (counterexamples are plenty) also contradict other systems of correspondences, such as the one found in PGM CX. 1-12:

. . . a voice comes to you in conversation. Lay out the stars on the board in their natural order, with the exception of the sun and the moon. Make the sun gold, the moon silver, Kronos of obsidian, Ares of yellow-green onyx, Aphrodite of lapis-lazuli streaked with gold, Hermes of turquoise; make Zeus of a [dark blue] stone, but underneath of crystal.

The PGM (Greek Magical Papyri) is always a difficult source to assess because of its syncretic and fragmented nature. In any case, its material is dated between the 1st and 4th century AD, which is a timeframe that is likely to be in sync with Roman Britain. It is worth noting that this specific passage of the PGM refers to the planets carrying the names of deities.

In any case, none of those correspondences seem to fit with modern ones, which are, for the most part, taken from an entirely different system (especially the bastardized/westernized idea of chakras). As for other uses, we can clearly see that some of the health claims made by "lithotherapists" (or just Karens on the Internet) trace back to ancient Greek medical treatises. And, please, don't ingest crystals.

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Attilio Mastrocinque, The Colours of Magical Gems

Veronique Dasen, Magic and Medicine: Gems and the Power of Seals

Christopher A. Faraone, Text, Image and Medium: the Evolution of Graeco-Roman Magical Gemstones, all 3 in: Gems of Heaven : Recent Research on Engraved Gemstones in Late Antiquity c. AD 200 (eds. Chris Entwistle & Noel Adams), British Museum Press, 2012

Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demotic Spells, 1986

Dioscorides & Lily Y. Beck (tran.), De materia medica, 2005