“Pretty, in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.”
Pope.
Amber is a fossil vegetable resin which has undergone change owing to chemical action. The name is derived from the Arabic word AMBAR. Amber is also known as Succinum (a word derived from the Greek Succum, juice) on account of its vegetable origin. At one time it was also known by the Oriental word Karabe, straw-attractor. Hash-mal was its name in Hebrew and by the Greeks it was known as ELEKTRON, from which our word electricity has been derived. That painstaking scholar of the 17th century, Dr. Philemon Holland, thus translates from the 37th Book of Pliny: “To come into the properties that amber hath; if it bee well rubbed and chaufed between the fingers, the potentiall faculty that hath within is set on work and brought into actuall operation whereby you shall see it to draw chaffe, strawes, drie leaves, yea and thin rinds of the Linden or Tillet tree after the same sort as the loadstone draweth yron.” According to Callistratus it is good as a preventative of delirium, and as a cure for strangury if taken in drink or attached as an amulet to the body. This last author gives the name CHRYSELECTRUM to an amber of golden colour which presents most beautiful tints in the morning, attracts flame with the greatest rapidity, igniting the moment it approaches fire. Worn upon the neck, he says, it is a cure for fever and other diseases, “and the powder of it either taken by itself or with gum mastick in water is remedial for disease of the stomach.”
The writer has had strong evidence of the efficacy of amber in the cure of asthma, hay fever, croup and various diseases of the throat, and knows a number of medical practitioners who are convinced of its beneficial action. A well-known chemist also assured him that his wife had suffered from asthma all her life until five years ago, when she expressed a desire to wear a string of amber; since wearing this she has not experienced the slightest symptom of her former trouble. The writer has an amber necklet, the beads of which are mud-coloured and cracked after having been worn for a few months by a lady suffering from hay fever. There is no doubt of its curative influence, no doubt that ancient observation was correct, and the statement in some modern medical text books that amber has “absolutely no curative value” is difficult indeed to follow. It is remarkable that distilled amber yielding a pungent, acrid but not unpleasant oil, known as Oil of Amber or Oil of Succinite, is recognized as a potent ingredient in various embrocations. It is, therefore, hard to reconcile the statements that while amber has “absolutely no curative value,” Oil of Amber has. Mr. C. W. King says: “Repeated experiments have proved beyond doubt that the wearing of an amber necklace has been known to prevent attacks of erysipelas in a person subject to them.” He also writes of its efficacy “as a defender of the throat against chills.”
Ancient writers said that amber eased stomach pains, cured jaundice and goitre, and acted against certain poisons, Camillus Leonardus recommending it as a cure for toothache and affections of the teeth. In the Middle Ages it was used as a charm against fits, dysentery, jaundice, scrofula and nervous affections. Thomas Nicols, a 17th century writer, says: “Amber is esteemed the best for physic use, and is thought to be of great power and force against many diseases, as against the vertigo and asthmatic paroxysmes, against catarrhes and anthreticall pains, against diseases of the stomach and to free it from sufferings and putrefactions and against diseases of the heart, against plagues, venoms and contagions. It is used either in powder or in troches, either in distempers of men or of women, married or unmarried, or in the distempers of children.” The dose formerly administered for coughs, hysteria, etc., was from ten to sixty grains.
Amber cut in various magical forms was extensively used as a charm against the evil eye, witchcraft and sorcery. It was and still is used as a mouthpiece for cigar and cigarette holders and smoking pipes, etc. Its employment in this capacity was originally talismanic, for it was implicitly believed that amber would not only prevent infection, but would act as a charm against it. Francis Barrett, in his work on Natural Magic, says that amber attracts all things to it but garden basil or substances smeared with oil. In China today amber is greatly esteemed, being used in the making of certain medicines, perfumes, and as an incense which use dates back to the Bible times. In such esteem is amber held in the East that the Shah of Persia is said to wear a block of amber on his neck to protect him against assassination. Perhaps no legend has been more ridiculed than the one which relates that amber was the solidified urine of the lynx; but the old writers Sudines and Metrodorus show that the lynx was not an animal but a tree from which amber is exuded, and which was known in Etruria as a Lynx. Pliny repeats from Ovid’s Metamorphoses the tradition among the Greeks that amber was the tears of the Heliades (Phaethusa, Ægle, Lampetia), the Sun Maidens, who harnessed the steeds of the Sun to the chariot when their rash brother Phaethon set forth on his fatal journey. The horses of the Sun were wild and strong, fire flew from their nostrils, and the youthful charioteer was not strong enough to keep them to their rightful course. The chariot, as its speed grew faster, became luminous, electric and fiery, the hair of the driver caught fire, the earth began to smoke and burn, Libya was parched into a waste of sand, Africa was afire, rivers were dried up, vegetation was destroyed, and the heat was so intense that the inhabitants of the stricken countries changed from white to black. Gaea, in fear for the earth, called on Jupiter for protection, who, with a lightning-bolt, struck the chariot, hurling the “stricken waggoner,” as Shakespeare calls him, lifeless into the River Eridanus—(the Padus or Po)—at the mouth of which river were found the Electrides Insulae (Amber Islands). The three sad sisters were transformed into poplars, and their tears of amber never ceased to flow. “To these tears,” says Pliny, “was given the name of Electrum, from the circumstance that the Sun was usually called Elector.” It requires but little thought to unveil this beautiful allegory which told the exact truth even while the nature of amber was disturbing the minds of scholars, its vegetable origin being doubted.
The old story that amber was a concretion formed by the tears of the birds is a variation of the Phæthon legend which Thomas Moore has so gracefully rendered in “The Fire Worshippers.”