Christopher Duffin
London, England

Amber is an organic mineraloid made from fossilized plant resin. Forty-four-million-year-old amber from the Baltic region, particularly the Samland Peninsula in the Russian exclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast, effectively supplied the pharmaceutical demands of western Europe. Mined since Paleolithic times, its distinctive color and anomalous properties (ability to support a static charge, high thermal conductivity, and exceptionally low density), combined with its relative rarity and exoticism, brought it to the attention of the medical community. Here, it proved to be an extremely versatile material exploited in both Galenic and Paracelsian medicine to treat a staggering array of conditions.

The intrinsic beauty of amber means it is a popular item of personal adornment. Historically, it was also credited with amuletic powers. Pliny the Elder (c. 23/24–79) noted that Lombardy women wore amber necklaces to guard against conditions of the throat including tonsillitis, pharyngitis, and goiter, as well as to offer protection against evil.¹ According to Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280), wearing amber helped to ease the process of childbirth,² while Felice Passera (1610–1702) recommended wearing it around the wrist to defend against the plague.³ One example of an amber amulet is presented in Fig. 1.

With minimal processing (pulverization), amber could be rendered fine enough to be compounded with other ingredients and combined into a wide range of delivery systems and dosage forms for both topical and internal administration. It could be applied as a poultice to the head to treat “palsy of the tongue” and in plasters for easing sciatica, gout, syphilis, broken bones, bruising, and scurvy.⁴ It was employed in pessaries to stem excessive menstrual bleeding, in ointments to treat vaginal discharge, in wound-healing balsams, and as a fumigant to deal with epilepsy and rectal prolapse. For internal use, it was incorporated into lozenges, pills, tablets, troches, electuaries, solutions, and syrups, as well in medicinal toasts and poached eggs.

Paracelsus (1493–1541) advocated the release of physiologically active therapeutic “virtues” by alchemical means, particularly distillation. Amber lent itself to this type of processing. Sir John Hill (1714–1775) described what is effectively a form of fractional distillation.⁵ A glass retort or alembic was packed two-thirds full with lumps of amber and carefully heated. Different oily fractions, released at successive temperatures, were caught in a receiver or cucurbit. Crystals (salt of amber) sublimated onto the walls of both the retort and the receiver, from which they could be scraped off. Dissolving these crystals in water, which was then reheated and the new sublimate collected through a series of cycles, was designed to improve the purity of the product. The oil of amber from the first distillation episode could be distilled a second time (the process of rectification) to yield a thinner product in the receiver known as the tincture of amber; the thick residue in the alembic was known as balsam of amber. Alternatively, the oil of amber could be dissolved in ethanol, giving rise to the powers of amber.

Each of these processed amber derivatives could be combined more easily with other materials in a greater variety of compound medicines than was the case with pulverized amber. Furthermore, according to Paracelsian thinking, these purified and concentrated essences contained little non-therapeutic “dross,” which meant that dosage could more easily be controlled and standardized. Also, long term storage was possible in dedicated apothecarial glassware (Fig. 2).

The preparations could also be prescribed in their own right. Oil of amber was esteemed for nervous and cephalic disorders, although John Hill warned that it was “a very disagreeable Medicine to take.” Oswald Croll (c. 1563–1609) extolled its preeminence as a remedy for apoplexy and epilepsy, and added that it could be applied in preparations to treat bladder stones and other urinary problems, to ease birth and other obstetrical problems, and for fevers, cardiac conditions, dental difficulties, catarrh, colic, vomiting blood, jaundice, vertigo and scotoma (reduced vision from partial impairment of the retina).⁶

John Hill noted that salt of amber was “a very great Medicine in Convulsions, in Head-achs, and in all nervous and hysteric Complaints” and that tincture of amber was invested with all the healing properties of unprocessed amber.⁷ Pierre Pomet (1658–1699), chief druggist to Louis XIV, stated that tincture of amber was “endow’d with a great many good Qualities, especially in apoplectick and epileptical fits, and paralytick cases.”⁸

There are fewer early modern references to the use of powers of amber, although the apothecary John Spire (fl. 1690s) indicated that the preparation was effective against “Head-achs, Lethargies, Dulness, and Sleepiness, and other pituitous distempers of the Brain […] Cramps, and Convulsions […] are excellent in Palsies, Rheumatisms, and Gouts […] against Fits of the Mother in Women; and takes away pains after their Deliveries.”⁹

Amber was an essential part of the stock-in-trade of the early modern apothecary. Employed in an amulet, as an otherwise unrefined powder, or in the form of alchemically processed chemical derivatives, contemporary accounts show that it possessed exceptionally wide-ranging potential as a medicinal simple.

References

1. Sidney Ball. A Roman Book on Precious Stones. Los Angeles: Gia, 1950: 134.
2. Dorothy Wyckoff. Albertus Magnus Book of Minerals. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967: 121.
3. Felice Passera. Il nuovo tesoro degl’arcani farmacologici galenici, e chimici, ò spargirici. Divisa in tre libri. Venice: Giovanni Parè, 1688: 494.
4. Christopher Duffin. “History of the external pharmaceutical use of Amber.” Pharmaceutical Historian, 2013; 43 (3): 46-53.
5. John Hill. A history of the materia medica. London: T. Longman, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, 1751: 158.
6. Oswald Croll. Bazilica Chymica. London: John Starkey, 1670: 104.
7. Hill. A history of the materia medica, 159.
8. Pierre Pomet, P. A compleat history of Druggs. London: J. & J. Bonwicke, R. Wilkin (etc.), 1737: 386.
9. John Spire. The natures, uses, & doses of several approved and experienced medicines. London: Benja. Harris, snr., 1698: 12.