Honey 821 -stone

It is found in nature as a mineral, in the form of an aluminium salt known as honey stone or mellite. It is formed when graphite is oxidized with nitric acid and it may be synthesized by oxidizing hexa-methyl benzene. 

Mellitic Acid, C6(COOH)6, is of interest as it contains six carboxyl groups. It occurs in peat as the aluminium salt, which is called honey-stone, C6(C00)6Al2.18H20. The acid is formed as the result of the oxidation of lignite, wood-charcoal, or graphite with potassium permanganate. It crystallizes in silky needles, and is not affected when treated with nitric acid, sulphuric acid, or bromine. Benzene is formed when the calcium salt of mellitic acid is heated with lime. 

It is said that the soldiers of Darius the Great (521-486 bc) emperor of Persia baked a kind of flat bread on their shields and then covered it with cheese and dates when on campaign. Cato the Elder, i.e. Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 bc), wrote of a flat round of dough dressed with olive oil, herbs and honey baked on stones . Shops were found in the ruins of Pompeii apparently equipped for the manufacture and sale of flat breads, possibly pizzas. 

Sugars, such as fructose and glucose from honey, have been harvested and processed by humans since the Stone Age [23], The use of sucrose as a sweetener dates back to the eighth century BC and could only be afforded by royalty and the very wealthy [24], More recently, these natural products become critical in a variety of industries focused on the production of paper, pulp, textiles, and pharmaceuticals. As often is the case, industrial applications ultimately provided the economic impetus for investigations into carbohydrate synthesis, purification, and characterization in the late nineteenth century. 

Chet Raymo, Honey From Stone A Naturalist s Search for God... 

MELITITES — A Stone now almost unknown, especially in laboratories. Dioscorides asserts that it resembles Galactite, and possesses the same virtues and potencies, only that it has a sweeter sap. Pliny (1. 36, c. 19) states that Melitite, when pounded, yields a sweet and honey-like juice, or sap, and that when mixed with wax, it is a medicine for excessive phlegm, spots on the body, ulceration of the jaws, and the pain of wounds. 

Honey-like semen is the mercury The controlled breath is the herb The fire at Muladhara is the oven The product is the Philosopher s Stone Oh man Find this stone in the body And fly in the sky at will."... 

Bruise it in a stone mortar, and having sprinkled on it a little water, press it strongly in a hempen bag till it yields its juice. This is to be evaporated immediately in flat vessels in a bath of boiling water saturated with muriate of soda, till it is brought to the consistence of thick honey. During the latter part of the process it should be stirred with a wooden spatula. 

This formula contains cephalanoplos (small thistle), lotus rhizome node, dry-fried cattail pollen, rehmannia, talc, mutong, lophatheri, gardenia fruit, dang gui, and honey-fried licorice. These herbs are antibacterial, antiinflammatory, demulcent, and astringent. The formula is used for bloody, painful urinary conditions with urinary frequency and burning pain on voiding. From a Western perspective, this formula is used for acute cystitis, polycystic kidneys, kidney stones, and BPH. 

Boch, R., Shearer, D.A. and Stone, B.C. (1962). Identification of iso-amyl acetate as an active component in the sting pheromone of the honey bee. Nature 195,1018-1020. 

Stone, J.C., Abramson, C.I. and Price, J.M. (1997). Task-dependent effects of dicofol (kelthane) on learning in the honey bee Apis melliferd). Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 58,177-183. 

IVaditional use A powder of roasted and ground fruits mixed with honey is used in folk medicine to dissolve renal and cystic stones and to treat skin diseases (for white spots on the skin). The powdered mber is applied to mouth injuries and for reddening of the tongue (Khatmatov 1964). 

Traditional use Avicenna used this plant to treat headaches, facial paralysis, and eye cataracts, and when mixed together with honey in hot water to remove bladder and kidney stones. An infusion of the seeds is used to treat toothaches, gastric and intestinal diseases and chest pains, and is used as a, diuretic, soporific, and vermifuge for children (seeds in vinegar), as well as to treat angina and stimulate milk production in women (Karimov and Shomakhmudov 1993). 

Traditional use Fruits and leaves are used to treat anemia and edema, and as a light laxative. Fresh fruits are used to decrease blood pressure, to treat heart and liver diseases and atherosclerosis. A decocotion of the young branches is drunk to treat children s diabetes and skin tuberculosis (Poludenny and Zhuravlev 2000). A decoction of the fruits is used as a diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory, and diuretic. The fresh juice is used to treat stomach and duodenum ulcers and gastritis with low stomach acidity mixed with honey it is used to treat respiratory diseases. Leaves are used in a tea to treat skin and bladder diseases, kidney stones, rheumatism, common colds, and also as a diuretic (Khahnatov et al. 1984). 

Materials are essential to our life. It is hard to imagine how human civilization would have developed without stone, wood, clay, bronze, iron, brass, copper, and other kinds of stuff our tools and instmments are made of. Ohve oil and other vegetable oils, animal fats, wine and beer, honey and beeswax, juices and syrups, sea salt and rock salt, milk, and water have been used as food and medicines since prehistoric times. Materials are part and parcel of the material culture of human societies. Hence it is not surprising that they have served to demarcate large historical periods in human civilization, such as the Stone Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age. Materials are even indispensable for the most accomplished forms of human hfe. There is no modern painting without canvas and pigments, no poem without paper and ink, no classical symphony without wood and metals to build the violin and the piano. 

MeliUte [Named from the Latin mel for honey and lithos, stone] (Ca,Na) (Mg,Fe,Al)[Si,OJ (Sorosilicates, pair) Tetragonal a s 780 pm c s 500 pm (Z = 2) Melilite type Uniaxial (+/-) = 1.638-1.657 03= 1.631-1.667 S= 0.010 5-5.5 2950 Habit equant or short prisnmtic crystals. Color colorless, yellow to light brown. Diaphaneity translucent. Luster vitreous. Streak white. Cleavage (001). Fracture conchoidal. Chemical gelatinizes in cold and dilute HCI. Occurrence ultramafic igneous rocks and skarns. 

A Mrs Stephens had cured the Postmaster-General, Lord Carteret, of the stone (calculus) and a public subscription to collect 5ooo was started to purchase her remedy. The sum was not reached and Parliament was asked to make it up. A commission was appointed, including Hales, and when it reported an Act of Parliament was passed in May, 1739, to provide the money. For ooo this lady revealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, on behalf of Parliament, that her remedy consisted of a powder, a decoction, and pills. The powder was of egg-shells and garden snails well calcined until the snails had done smoaking the decoction was of herbs and soap, etc. and the pills of burnt snails, herbs, soap, and honey. Burnt snails were reported by Pliny as a remedy for urinary calculi, and this lingered on in popular medicine. 

But look here now. That weus honey. It may have taken you a whole year, maybe, to gather it with care, trouble and toil you had to travel about, to catch the bees, to feed them for a whole winter in your cellar, but dead souls are. not of this world. They required no effort from you, it was by the will of God only that they forsook this world, thus bringing loss to your household. For all your effort and toil you realized twelve roubles for three stones of honey, but in this case you are getting for nothing, as a gift, not twelve but fifteen roubles, and you are getting them not in silver but in blue currency notes. ... 

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