Amber Unlocked : Iatrochemical Preparations (poster abstract)

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AMBER T]I\LOCKED : IATROCHEMICAL PREPARATIONS Christopher Duffin The Natural History Museum, London c

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The burgeoning authority of classical authorities such as Aristotle, Galen, Dioscorides, and Pliny, plus that of medieval vniters likeAlbertus Magnus came under careful scrutiny by various renaissance authors; Francis Bacon (15611626) considered that the main hindrance to medical progress was the profession's unquestioning reliance on the authority of Galen, whom he referred to as'that narowest of mindst! Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) challenged the stranglehold of Aristotelianism on the natural sciences, and championed a neoplatonic approach.

The greatest assault, however, was mounted by Philip Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493-1541), also known as Paracelsus, the son of a rural Swiss physician. Widely travelled, studying and practicing medicine in ltaly, Holland, Prussia, Poland, Scandinavia and the Levant, he was thoroughly iconoclastic, refusing to lecture on the classical authorities but prefening to teach from his own experience. He lectured in vernacular Swiss German rather than Latin, ffid famously scandalised the medical authorities by hurling a copy of Avicenna's Canon into the flames of the St John's Day celebrations at Basel in 1527. Challenging the authority of the ancients, the hierarchy of the university and its syllabus got him thrown out of Basel, forcing him to resume an itinerant existence. His medical philosophy, intimately bound up with his unique God endowed theology, included the idea of the Doctrine of Signatures nature with clues as to its therapeutic uses; the medicinal properties and virtues of plants, animals and minerals coqld be discerned from their outward shape, colorr etc. In his Archidoxa, first published in 1569, appearance Paracelsus proposed an alternative to readjusting the balances of humours by Galenic treatments such as blood-letting. Instead, he advocated using the 'natural virtues'or quintessences inherent in herbs, animals and stones, liberated by alchemical separation from the accompanying dross to target specific conditions and diseases. The process of separation required alchemical distillation, an art whose processes were ohampioned by followers of Paracelsus, such as Hieronymus Braunschweig (circa 1450.- circa 1512). This approach saw the gradual' overturning of the 'galenical' approach to

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pharmacological treatnent in favour of the 'chymical' approach, leading in turn to the development of chemical pharmacology.

geopharmaceuticals available in the apothecary's arsenal, amber lent itself particularly well to alchemical processing, with the 'essence' being released and concentrated from the ineffectual remainder or 'scurf in the production of four commonly used preparations :

Of all the non-metallic

or Salt of Amber 2. Oleum Succini, or Oil of Amber 3. Tinctura Succini,or Tincture of Amber 4. Potestates Succini, or Powers of Amber 1. Sal,Succini,

Sir John Hill (1714-1755) gave a useful summary of the processes involved. The production of Salt and Oil of amber involved filling a glass retort (the ohead' or 'alembic') two-thirds full with lump amber, heating, and then catching the distilled fractions in a 'receiver' (or 'cucurbit'). With increasing temperatures, an 'acid phlegm', followed by a 'thin limpid oil' and finally a thicker oil were produced. The temperature of the fire was then increased until sublimated white crystals (Salt of Amber) appeared on the walls of the glassware; further hlating of the residue produced a final volatile which sublimated as a thick black bitumen. Increasing the purity of the Salt was achieved by repeatedly dissolving the crystals in water, heating, fbllowed by recrystallisation. Hill commended Salt of Amber as 'diaphoretic and diuretic a very great Medicine in Convulsions, in Head-achs, and in all nervous and hysteric Complaints'.

Oil of amber was purified by means of a second distillation or 'rectification' resulting in the characteristically thin oil, plus a thicker residue remaining in the Balsam of Amber. According to Pierre Pomet (1658-1699), the oil retort was 'an excellent Aperitive or Deobstruent, and very good against the Scurvy, taken in any Liquor, from ten to twenty four Drops'. Hill adds that 'The Oil is a famous Antihysteric. It is also balsamic, diuretic and diaphoretic, and is an excellent Medicine in Convulsions, and in all Disorders of the Head and Nenres'.

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Tincture of Amber and Powers of Amber are two alcoholic solutions of amber derivatives produced in slightly different ways. According to Pomet, the tincture was 'endow'd with a gteat many good Qualities, especially in apoplectick and epileptical fits, and paralytrck caseso. John Quincey (died 1722) explains that Powers of Amber ohas the Vinues of the Oil and is fitter for prescription internally, because it better frrixes with any vehicle for the Conveniency of taking'.

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