62 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
Our earliest authority on the curative use of amber, the great
encyclopaedist Pliny, states that in his day the female peasants of the
valley of the Po, in northern Italy, might be seen wearing amber
necklaces, principally as ornaments, but also because of their
remedial powers ; for even at this early period it was generally
believed that amber had most excellent effects in diseases of the
throat and tonsils. The peasants of this region were especially subject
to such disorders, and Pliny conjectures that they were caused by the
different sorts of water in the neighborhood of the Alps.108 He
probably refers not only to diseases of the throat, properly so
called, but also to a swelling of the glands of the neck, the goitre with
which so many of the peasants living on the slopes of the Alps, and in
other mountainous regions of central Europe, are afflicted.
The golden-hued amber was called chryselectrum by
Cal-listratus, as cited by Pliny. This was said to attract the flame
and to ignite if it came in contact with the fire. If worn on the neck
it was a cure for fevers ; if powdered and mixed with honey and oil of
roses it was beneficial for dimness of vision, and its powder, whether
taken by itself or in water with gum mastic, remedied diseases of the
stomach.110 In ancient and medieval times the fear of poison
being administered in food or drink was very great, and any substance
that was credited with the power to show the presence of poison, by
some change in clearness or color, was highly valued. An amber cup was
said to reveal the admixture of any of the various kinds of poison with
the liquid it contained.111
The use of amber as a preventive of erysipelas finds a defender in Rev. C. W. King, who writes as follows :
"Plinii, "Naturalis hietoria," Lib. xxxvii, cap. 11. m Plinii, " Naturalis hietoria," Lib. xxxvii, cap. 12. m Severus Sammonicus, " Préceptes médicaux," text and French trans, by L. Baudet, Paris, 1845, pp. 84, 85.
