Nicolaus Myrepsus (Recipe 951, op. citat.) gives a prescription for
dysentery and diabetes confiding chiefly of "Electri vel succi Nili (Nili succum appellant Arabes Karabem)."
[112] Page 47, line 22. Page 47, line 26. Sudauienses seu Sudini.—Cardan in De Rerum Varietate, lib. iii., cap. xv. (Editio Basil., 1556, p. 152), says of amber:
"Colligitur in quadam penè insula Sudinorum, qui nunc uocātur Brusci, in Prussia, nunc Borussia, juxta Veneticum sinum, & sunt orientaliores ostiis Vistulæ fluuii: ubi triginta pagi huic muneri destinati sunt," etc. He rejects the theory that it consists of hardened gum.
There exists an enormous literature concerning Amber and the Prussian amber industry. Amongst the earliest works (after Theophrastus and Pliny) are those of Aurifaber (Bericht über Agtstein oder Börnstein, Königsberg, 1551); Goebel (De Succino, Libri duo, authore Severino Gœbelio, Medico Doctore, Regiomont., 1558); and Wigand (Vera historia de Succino Borussico, Jena, 1590). Later on Hartmann, P. J. (Succini Prussici Physica et civilis Historia, Francofurti, 1677); and the splendid folio of Nathaniel Sendel (Historia Succinorum corpora aliena involventium, Lipsiæ, 1742), with its wealth of plates illustrating amber specimens, with the various included fossil fauna and flora. Georgius Agricola (De natura Fossilium, liber iv.), and Aldrovandi (Musæeum Metallicum, pp. 411-412) must also be mentioned. Bibliographies of the earlier literature are to be found in Hartmann (op. citat.), and in Daniel Gralath, Elektrische Bibliothek (Versuche und Abhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Danzig, Zweiter Theil, pp. 537-539, Danzig and Leipzig, 1754). See also Karl Müllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, vol. i., Zweites Buch, pp. 211-224, Zinn und Bernsteinhandel (Berlin, 1870), and Humboldt's Cosmos (Bohn's edition, London, 1860, vol. ii., p. 493).
The ancient Greek myth according to which amber was the tears of the Heliades, shed on the banks of the river Eridanus over Phaethon, is not alluded to by Gilbert. It is narrated in well-known passages in Ovid and in Hyginus. Those interested in the modern handling of the myth should refer to Müllenhoff (op. citat., pp. 217-223, der Bernsteinmythus), or to that delightful work The Tears of the Heliades, by W. Arnold Buffum (London, 1896).
[113] Page 47, line 30. Page 47, line 36. quare & muscos ... in frustulis quibusdam comprehensos retinet.—The occurrence of flies in amber was well known to the ancients. Pliny thus speaks of it, book xxxvii., chap. iii. (p. 608 of P. Holland's translation of 1601):
"That it doth destill and drop at the first very clear and liquid, it is evident by this argument, for that a man may see diverse things within, to wit, Pismires, Gnats, and Lizards, which no doubt were entangled and stucke within it when it was greene and fresh, and so remain enclosed within as it waxed harder."
A locust embedded in amber is mentioned in the Musæum Septalianum of Terzagus (Dertonæ, 1664).
Martial's epigram (Epigrammata, liber vi., 15) is well known: