"ἄιγειρος, populus nigra ... idem electrum vel succinum αἱγείρου lachrymam esse adseverat [Paulus], cui præter vires quæ ab Dioscoride recensentur, tribuit etiam vim sistendi sanguinis, si tusum in potu sumatur. Avicennæ Charabe, ut colligitur ex Joanne Jacobo Manlio, est electrum hoc Dioscoridis, attestatur Brunfelsius. Lucianus planè nullum electrum apud Eridanum seu Padum inveniri tradit, quandoquidem ne populus quidem illa ab nautis ei demonstrari potuerit. Plinius rusticas transpadanas ex electro monilia gestare adfirmat, quum à Venetis primum agnoscere didicissent adversus nimirum vitia gutturis et tonsillarum. Num sit purgamentum maris, vel lachryma populi, vel pinus, vel ex radiis occidentis solis nascatur, vel ex montibus Sudinorum profluat, incertum etiam Erasmus Stella relinquit. Sudinas tamen Borussiorum opes esse constat."
Matthiolus (in P. A. Mattioli ... Opera quæ extant omnia, hoc est Commentarii in vi libros P. Dioscoridis de materia medica, Frankfurt, 1596, p. 133) comments on the suggestion of Galen that amber came from the Populus alba, and also comments on the Arabic, Greek, and Latin names of amber.
The poplar-myth is commemorated by Addison (in Italy) in the lines:
No interwoven reeds a garland made,
To hide his brows within the vulgar shade;
But poplar wreathes around his temples spread,
And tears of amber trickled down his head.
Amber is, however, assuredly not derived from any poplar tree: it comes from a species of pine long ago extinct, called by Göppert the pinites succinifer.
Gilbert does not go into the medicinal uses, real or fancied, that have been ascribed to amber in almost as great variety as to loadstone. Pliny mentions some of these in his Natural Historie (English version of 1601, p. 609):
"He [Callistratus] saith of this yellow Amber, that if it be worne about the necke in a collar, it cureth feavers, and healeth the diseases of the mouth, throat, and jawes: reduced into pouder and tempered with honey and oile of roses, it is soveraigne for the infirmities of the eares. Stamped together with the best Atticke honey, it maketh a singular eyesalve for to help a dim sight: pulverized, and the pouder thereof taken simply alone, or else drunke in water with Masticke, is soveraigne for the maladies of the stomacke."