Glossopetrae, ‘Tongue Stones’ (Burges Collection of Materia Medica, late 1700s)

These shark teeth have been mounted in silver casings for use as medicinal amulets. The name ‘tongue stone’ comes from the New Testament story of St Paul, who was bitten by a snake after being shipwrecked on Malta. He cursed the snakes of the island and they lost their eyes and tongues. Later travellers found fossilised shark teeth and thought they were the tongues of the cursed snakes. They were believed to have special powers against poisons.

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said one to another, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped from the sea, yet Justice has not allowed to live.” However he shook off the creature into the fire, and wasn’t harmed. But they expected that he would have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly, but when they were long in expectation and saw nothing bad happen to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.

Acts of the Apostles, 28, 3-6