Med. Obs. [Mod.L. (Paracelsus), app. an application of L. lūdus play (perh. taken in the sense ‘freak of nature’).] A name applied to certain septarian nodules formerly regarded as specific in cases of calcareous concretionary disease.
a. 1728. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Fossils (1729), I. 83. He [Dr. Grew] supposes the Waxen-Vein to be the same with the Ludus of Paracelsus and Van Helmont. Ibid., 84. Sir I. Newton gave me a Piece of this kind of Body brought over from Germany by the younger Helmont, as the true Ludus of his father, which does not differ … from those commonly found in England.
